


Fic: I Ettelëa mi Ettelë (Book One: Nine)

by Eshusplayground



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 18:23:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 61,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12018441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eshusplayground/pseuds/Eshusplayground
Summary: Nichelle's life is turned upside down when Elrond Half-elven falls into modern-day Detroit from the ship that sailed West.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: A baddie uses a transphobic slur in Chapter 2. A bad guy uses a racial slur in Chapter 9.

 

> _People are strange when you’re a stranger_  
>  _Faces look ugly when you’re alone_  
>  _Women seem wicked when you’re unwanted_  
>  _Streets are uneven when you’re down_  –The Doors, “People Are Strange”

The pupil-black sky is thick with the scent of rain. In this part of the city, those few buildings still open to the public cocoon themselves in light. The streets stretch their shadows across themselves. People avoid the darkening streets with the same instinct as birds flying south in the season of death. Those who don’t know better may see a police car zipping down the street, lights flashing and siren screaming, and feel comfort. This feeling is a lie. There are  _things_  that dwell in the shadows of the city, things it is best to pretend to ignore.

Nichelle twists the key. The door locks with a satisfying click. She peeks up at the overcast sky, soothed by the soft moonlight seeping through the clouds. She needs all the help she could get to ease her nerves at this time of year. Devil’s Night is making a fierce comeback. It’s not a time to caught out alone on the streets. She can’t wait to get home. The sickos who torch buildings on Devil’s Night steer clear of her loft. People who were around back then say the place is haunted. Nichelle was barely a toddler at the time, but her mom told her stories about some guy–Edward? Eric–who came back from the dead and killed the bastards who raped and killed his girlfriend then shot him and tossed him out a window. Twinkie tells her all the time that she’s a brave woman for living there.

“Not brave, just cheap,” she quips back.

Speaking of Twinkie…

Nichelle fishes her phone from her pocket and hits speed dial. While the phone rings, Nichelle glances at the billboard for the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s  _The Dark Tower_. It shows the silhouette of the gunslinger with his back turned and facing a wide, bleach-white desert. Below, the letters read:

 

> The epic adventure of all time  
>  Stephen King’s  _The Dark Tower  
>  _ Book I: The Gunslinger  
>  **COMING SOON**

Twinkie’s thick, bleary voice croaks hello. 

“Hey, Twinkie. I’m closing up right now,” she says. Twinkie quickly wakes up from her nap. They talk about nothing as Nichelle counts her till, puts items back where they belong, and cleans up. This is their system for making sure one of them doesn’t go missing without the other knowing about it. Besides, talking to Twinkie makes closing go by more quickly.

“Another day, another dollar for Thirfty Stylez,” she says, “All I gotta do now is get– _shit_!”

“Nicki? Nicki! What’s wrong?”

What’s wrong is six-foot-six, white, and has long, black hair. What’s wrong is wearing ill-fitting clothes from the men’s casual section. The part of her mind that only wants to make babies notes that he’s an attractive male specimen. The other part of her mind, the part wired for self-preservation, screams  _DANGER_!

She screams and yells, “TWINKIE CALL THE COPS! SOMEBODY IN HERE!”

She bolts toward the back door with all she’s got. She’s three strides in when arms like iron wrap around her and pull her close. Everything feels suddenly slower. The phone slips from her hand, falls to the floor, and comes apart. Just when she needs to be completely focused on the moment, her mind drifts, to a horrid, rancid place where she is surrounded by grunts and growls, teeth and claws sink into her flesh, and many hands grope in the dark. Something inside her snaps, and all her mental energies direct themselves into one singular thought:  _Get this motherfucker off me_. She turns into a blur of kicking, scratching, biting, and shouting.

When she comes back to herself, she is pinned to the ground beneath him, and the detached observer part of her remarks that this would be nice under different circumstances. Every part of her is exhausted. Her limbs feel like lead, so she can’t move. Her lungs are on fire, so she can’t scream. She feels the tears coming, and she feels so weak, but what else is there to do but weep? There’s nothing she can do about what’s coming next. She just hopes it will be over soon.

Then a voice comes to her as though from inside her brain that says,  _do not be afraid; I will not harm you._

She gives him a really good look. The first thing she notices are his eyes. They are a kind of gray she has never seen before. They have a metallic sheen that made them shimmer like 

(mithril)

silver. Within their depths, are many years of happiness and sorrow, but that cannot be because he looks too young to have such an old soul. Then his brows draw together, and his lips purse. There’s something so familiar about that expression on his face. It makes her want to laugh, though only God knows why. His scent reminds her of old, leather-bound books, fast-flowing rivers, and fresh mountain air. It’s a smell she wants to wrap herself in to sit by warm fires on cold nights.

The cops burst through the back door, guns drawn. 

“Freeze, asshole!” shouts one of them. They advance on the two of them, and the stranger does something she does not expect. He slowly gets off her and places himself between her and the cops’ line of fire.

“Hands in the air, scumbag! I said get your goddamn hands in the air!”

They cuff the stranger none too gently. It’s raining hard when they take him to the police car, and they all get drenched. As if in retribution for this mishap, they slam him on the hood of the car and pat him down without even trying not to bruise him. Nichelle feels herself nodding to a question one of the cops asks her about making a statement at the station. The rain plasters the stranger’s hair and clothes to his body, and she almost faints when she sees his pointed ears. The stranger is shoved in the back seat of the car, and the police drive away.

 

Twinkie is at the station when Nichelle gets there. She greets her with a hug and nods when Twinkie asks if she’s alright.

“I’ma be right here while they take your statement, a’ight?” asks Twinkie. Nichelle nods.

“You gonna be OK,” she says. She gives Nichelle another hug and takes her place on the bench next to all the other people waiting for their loved ones.

Nichelle sits at the desk where the cops said Officer Ramirez will take her statement. With nothing else to do, she scans his desk as she waits. There’s a computer, a stress ball, and several pictures of a girl ranging infant to toddler to small child. When Ramirez shows up, Nichelle is surprised by how unassuming he looks. He’s just a regular-looking guy with graying hair and a mustache that’s about twenty-five years out of date. 

It takes them a while to get her statement. What happened is easy enough to communicate, but Ramirez has to write it all down then ask follow up questions that say the exact same thing.

“Is that your daughter?” asks Nichelle.

Ramirez grins as he scrawls Nichelle’s statement on the form.

“Yeah,  _mi angelita_ ,” he says.

“How old is she?”

“She, uh, would’ve been grown up by now.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

An hour later, and Ramirez still hasn’t gotten back yet. Nichelle desperately misses her phone. She’s tempted to use Ramirez’s computer and hop online, but that might be some sort of crime. She glances at Twinkie, who does have her phone, and feels a twinge of envy. Just as she was considering reading the phone book just to have something to do, Ramirez comes back with a baffled look on his face.

“Alright, Miss Washington,” he says, “The good news is if you want to press charges, your chances of a conviction are really good. The bad news is we can’t prove who he is or where the hell he comes from.”

“What?”

“There’s nothing in our system that identifies who he is or where he lives. No driver’s license, no visa, no passport, no fingerprints, no prior arrests or convictions, nothing. And he may or may not understand English.”

“How does that happen?” asks Nichelle.

“You’d be surprised, Miss Washington. Do you wish to proceed with pressing charges?”

Nichelle thinks about it. Does she want to send the stranger to jail? It happened so fast, and it doesn’t add up to robbery or sexual assault. Or maybe her mind played a trick and fooled her into thinking there was more to what the stranger did.

“I need to think about it,” she says. Ramirez nods.

“Will you get back to us tomorrow whatever you decide?” he asks.

“Sure,” she says. Ramirez opens the desk drawer and plucks a card from a scattered mess of rubber bands, ink pens, paper clips, and other office supplies. She thanks Ramirez, finds Twinkie, and leaves.

The ride home is blessedly quiet. She wants to tell Twinkie about the things she saw and heard and felt when the stranger was at the store, things that make her think that the stranger was not there to hurt her, but she can’t find the words to describe it.

“You need me to stay?” asks Twinkie. Nichelle shakes her head and thanks her. After making sure, again, that she doesn’t need company tonight, Twinkie bids her goodnight and goes home.

A long, hot shower washes away the tension built up over tonight. Smelling fresh and slightly damp, Nichelle slips into bed and pulls the blanket to her chin. She is out like a light before she takes ten breaths. She dreams of flying above a steep valley where a river flows wild.

 

As Nichelle falls asleep, someone else awakens from dreams of fire and death. It always starts the same: the star of Ëarendil falls from the sky and lands somewhere eastward. A flaming eye turns toward it and smolders with hate. The air is filled with screams. Charred bodies pile high as mountains. A blighted landscape crawls with the dregs of humanity. They worship at an altar made of severed limbs, bowing to the Spider God.

When the sleeper awakens, the horror of the dream still clings to his mind. Tien’s tiny hand strokes his face.

“Bad dream again?” she asks. She snuggles close to him, but he finds small comfort in her warmth and softness.

“I need to go,” he says in her native tongue.

“Where?”

“I’m not sure. East, I think.”

“Why?”

“If I were to guess, I need to find something. Or someone.”

“When you be back?” asks Tien.

“I shouldn’t be longer than a few days.”

“OK,” yawns Tien. “Be good.”

He kisses her on the top of her head. Tien’s hair is slowly but surely changing from black to gray (and, if she is lucky, to white). He will miss moments like this after–now is not the time to worry about the future. He pulls his luggage from the closet as quietly as possible. It’s harder for Tien to get back to sleep after she’s been awakened, and nowadays she needs more rest. He puts the luggage in the trunk and returns to the house for a quick security check, a habit he picked up when they lived in Oakland for a time. Assured of the safety of their home, Thranduil leaves the house, gets into the car, and drives into the night. The clock reads 12:19 AM as he pulls onto the highway and heads due east.

 

In the oasis of light that is Precinct 13, the night drags at a snail’s pace. Perps are brought in, processed, and sent home or tossed in lockup. It’s all business as usual, but a twitchiness settles on the precinct as it always does a few days away from Devil’s Night.

Ramirez checks his watch for the twelfth time in as many minutes. It’s nineteen after midnight. He still has six hours to go before his shift is over, and it’s already kicking his ass. He rubs his eyes and checks his watch again. Twelve twenty-one. At one o’clock, he’s drinking a Red Bull.

He should be thinking about Devil’s Night, but John Doe is all he can focus on. There’s something odd about him, something that broadcasts that John Doe’s…not from around here. Who is he? Where’s he from? What was he doing at a place called Thrifty Stylez? Why does he have no clothes of his own (the ones he wore when arrested were shoplifted) and no personal possessions?

Ramirez hasn’t had a chance to speak to him yet, but he passes by lockup from time to time. John Doe always sits on the bench with the posture of someone who spent their formative years in finishing school. From what the other officers say, he never speaks, but he complies with instructions and doesn’t try any shit with the other people in lockup. Stranger than that, no one in lockup tries any shit with him. Not even that crazy Church guy who’s always trying to burn up the LGBT center says a peep to him, not even a casual, “Fuck off, faggot” despite John Doe’s “unmanly” long hair.

Whatever. Maybe John Doe’s just charismatic. But there have been charismatic people in lockup, and none of them had the air of quiet authority that John Doe has. It reminds Ramirez of Captain Johnson from his days in the Navy. He wore his rank like a glove and had a way of bringing out the best in people, including Ramirez himself.

Blake says he reminds him of his dad.

“Your dad ran off when you were four,” says Ramirez.

“Yeah, but still. It’s like how my dad should’ve been.”

Ramirez can understand that. John Doe seems like someone to listen to and learn from. Maybe the others in lockup sense that about him too.

“Is she pressing charges?” asks Blake.

“Who?”

“The girl he attacked last night.”

“Haven’t heard from her.”

That’s odd but not unheard of. Plenty of women in her situation are too distraught and out of it to think straight, and most are too scared to press charges. But Miss Washington was lucid, and she was adamant about John Doe not raping her. Or maybe he didn’t get the chance. No matter how elegant he seems, John Doe did attack a woman last night. For all Ramirez knows, he’s some rich prick who wears business suits by day and goes around butt naked and assaults women at night. It wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened.

If he doesn’t hear from Miss Washington by his next shift, he’s calling her first no matter how late it is.

 

Thranduil speeds through California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and Nebraska at a steady seventy miles per hour. He doesn’t pay attention to the changing landscapes or the gentle progression of night to day. He only stops to refuel the car and use the bathroom. He eats nothing but energy bars, a far tastier option than  _lembas_ ever was, though he barely tastes the dried fruits and nuts. His eyes are fixed on the road, the steering pulled northeastward by that same magnetic pull that draws salmon to breed in the place of their birth.

It is dawn when that instinct drives him into Indiana, and full day when Indiana becomes Michigan. When he sees the road sign with the word Detroit in bold white letters, there is a powerful sense that Detroit is where he needs to be.

 

“So whatchu gonna do about talk, dark, and rapey?” asks Twinkie.

“Ummm, yeah, about that…I don’t think I’m gonna press charges,” says Nichelle. She braces herself for–

“WHAT?!”

“Twinkie, listen–”

“Oh, hell no, you ain’t gon’ let that raping bastard go. They need to lock his ass up and throw away the key.”

“I don’t think he was trying to hurt me.”

“What he put his hands on you for then?”

Nichelle sighs. This is why she almost let the phone keep ringing when Twinkie called. Twinkie has her mind set on some stranger in a ski mask jumping out of the shadows and trying to rape her, and nothing will convince her otherwise.

“He better be glad he ain’t do that shit to me,” says Twinkie, “I’d be over there at the jail whupping his ass right now.”

“Twinkie, shut up! Shut up and listen.”

“What.”

“I know how it sounds, but…something in my gut tells me he wasn’t trying to hurt me.”

Twinkie finally shuts up. There’s a long pause before she says, “So whatchu gonna do?”

“I dunno. I need answers.”

“From him?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“You want me to go with you?”

“I dunno. I think I’ll be OK.”

“A’ight. But if you change your mind–”

“I’ma call right away. Thanks,” says Nichelle, eyes warming and watering at how loyal and supportive Twinkie is right now, especially after the way people acted last time. No, she can’t think about that right now.

“You’re a good friend,” she says, swallowing hard to keep from crying.

“Be good to yourself today, OK?” says Twinkie. They say their goodbyes and hang up.

 

Ramirez’s phone brings him out of a dream about being pinched to pieces by giant mutant lobsters. He is surprised that his hand has all its fingers when he fumbles for it. The screen shows that Blake is calling. Seriously, does that kid ever sleep?

“Sarge?” says Blake.

“Yeah.”

“You said to call if somebody asked about John Doe.”

“Mm-hm. Who was it?”

“The girl who called it in. Miss…Washington?”

“What she say?” he croaks, wincing at the sunlight streaking through the curtains of his room.

“She’s not pressing charges. Not yet anyway.”

“You gotta be kidding me. Did you tell her that a conviction was likely if she testified?”

“Yeah, I did.”

Ramirez wills himself out of bed and shuffles into the kitchen like some sort of zombie in underwear as Blake explains something about Miss Washington wanting to try to talk to John Doe because she needs closure or something.

He digs a bowl from the cupboard and dumps cereal in it. He pours the last of the milk on top and hurls the carton toward the trash can and rolls his eyes as it bounces off the rim.

“We can’t keep him forever, Sarge,” says Blake, “We’re gonna need the room for Devil’s Night, and that’s only a couple of days from now.”

“Fine. If she’s not pressing charges, we can’t hold him. She can talk to him if she wants.”

Ramirez spoons the cereal into his mouth. It tastes like sawdust without a ton of sugar to give it flavor. He adds milk and sugar to his mental grocery list. He finishes the cereal then trudges back to the bed and falls into a deep, dreamless sleep.

 

Nichelle never wants to see the inside of another police station as long as she lives. Every element of it–the drab decor, the hard wooden benches, waiting, the bureaucracy, the repetitive questions–seem designed to break the will any individual who lives under the illusion that the police are there to serve and protect.

When it’s finally her turn, she recognizes the cute young cop from before. What’s his name again? She glances at the name tag under his badge. Right, it was Blake. Blake leads her into a hallway where the questioning rooms are. The tight corridor seems to press in against her, awakening the claustrophobia that slumbered for years in her subconscious. But Blake is with her, and if someone is with her, she will not suffocate and die.

“What’s your first name?” she asks. She breathes easier now.

“William,” says Blake.

“William Blake. Like the poet?”

“Not many people guess that.”

“Where’s Ramirez?” she asks.

“It’s his day off. Mine’s tomorrow, in case you were wondering,” he says, flashing her a cheeky smile. She smiles back. It’s not everyday that she gets asked out.

“He’s in this room over here,” says Blake, pointing at a closed door further down the hall. As she approaches, she catches sight of the stranger. In the bright, ugly light of the interrogation room, he doesn’t seem threatening at all. Though he sits with a kind of poise she’s only seen on Golden Age film stars, he looks completely lost. If what Ramirez said about him not speaking English is true, he probably has no idea what the hell is going on. He must be so disoriented and confused by everything around him. She feels sorry for him.

“You have about ten minutes before someone else needs to use this room,” says Blake. “I’ll be right here just in case.”

She enters the room. The stranger turns to her, and his face seems to light up at the sight of her. If only everyone were this excited to see her. She sits in the plastic chair across from him. It’s hard to return his gaze. Those silver eyes are too steady, too intense. If she looks into them too long, she may burst into flame like an ant beneath a microscope.

“I, uh, have some things I want to ask you. Things I need to understand about that night you came.”

Nichelle feels a gentle presence caress her mind. The stranger speaks, and she lets her ears savor the deep, rich voice that sounds the way dark chocolate tastes. To her ears, the words make no sense, but her mind understands clearly. There is some nagging suspicion that she should freak out about this, but a deeper part of her says there is nothing to fear.

“Whatever you wish to ask, I shall answer to the best of my ability,” he says.

The questions spill out of her mouth like water. _Who are you? What were you doing in the store? Why did you grab me? Have we met before? Why do I feel like I know you? How do you have pointy ears? Who are you?_

“My name is Elrond Halfelven. I do not know how I came to be in this place. Restraining you was the result of an unfortunate lack of judgment on my part. I had only intended to prevent any harm to you if you had taken leave of your senses and unwittingly put yourself in peril. I would have wished to explain further, but the authorities came and shackled me.”

At the sound of his name, that deep recognition struck her again. Nichelle flips the name over and over in her mind like a coin. Elrond Halfelven…Elrond Halfelven…Elrond…Elrond…

“I got it!  _Lord of the Rings_! He’s the guy with the, um, with the house. He patched Frodo up and there was a council and a big argument about what to do with the ring.”

The stranger, or Elrond, as he calls himself, looks shocked when she says this. Now knowing who he is (or thinks he is), she does see the resemblance to the actor who played him–what’s his name? He was in  _The Matrix_  and that movie with the drag queens. Not an exact match, but close enough that they can be mistaken for cousins. This explains why she recognized him.

“How did you come to know of such matters? These things are not common knowledge among Men.”

“Everybody knows about that. Those movies made a shit ton of money.”

“Movies?”

Now Nichelle is shocked because even the Amish have heard of movies. Her mind scrambles to make sense of what he’s saying and what she’s witnessed and experienced.

 _There are three possibilities_ , says the cold, logical part of her mind,  _he’s lying, he’s mistaken, or he’s telling the truth_.

He can’t be lying. It’s too elaborate a setup for fraud or pulling a prank. He can be mistaken, but even if he’s completely deluded, there should be proof of who he really is. So that leaves: he’s telling the truth. It can’t be true. There are no Elves or Dwarves or Hobbits in this world.

“I understand you are doubtful,” he says, “Were I in your position, I would doubt me too. I cannot offer you any evidence of my identity that would satisfy close scrutiny. I can only beg your forbearance in this matter in the hopes that all will be revealed in the fullness of time.”

Nichelle thinks until Blake taps on the door to let her know her time is up.

“Did you get the answers you were looking for?”

“Some, but now there’s even more questions,” she says.

“Where’d you learn that language he was speaking?”

“English?”

Blake shakes his head. “Whatever that was, it ain’t English.”

 

Muted sunlight seeps through the slate gray clouds of the city’s perpetually overcast sky and oozes into the loft Nichelle calls home. For the thousandth time that day, Nichelle kicks herself for being so stupid. It’s bad enough that she didn’t press charges, but bringing home the mysterious assailant, Elrond Halfelven or not, is the icing on the Nichelle Is A Dumbass cake.

“Just, um, make yourself comfortable,” she says. Elrond carefully inches inside. The second he lays eyes on the huge, round window, he drops to his knees and starts gasping for air. Nichelle scrambles to help him up, but waves his arm. She is relieved when he recovers and stands.

“You OK?”

“This was a place of torment,” he says, “and death. There is suffering in the floor and in the walls. What happened here?”

“The short version: a guy and his girlfriend were murdered here.”

“And you choose to live here?”

“Well, haunted houses are cheap, and this one is the only place in the city that’s truly safe on Devil’s Night.”

“Devil’s Night?”

Nichelle rubs her aching foot. “Yeah, it’s when all the criminals come out to play: smash windows, set fires, beat people up, that sort of thing.”

Elrond looks quizzically at her. “Why do the authorities permit this?”

“What can they do?” she says, kicking off her shoes and tossing them in the general direction of the shoe rack. “There’s more criminals than cops, and they have more firepower.”

Elrond arcs a brow at the pile of shoes next to the rack. Immediately embarrassed, she puts the shoes into their proper place on the rack. Elrond watches her with a focus that would be unnerving from anyone else but makes her feel comforted and protected. He takes off his own shoes, a pair of flip flops she bought at the Goodwill around the corner from the police station, and places them on the rack like they are rare and precious artifacts and not flimsy, mass-produced plastic things made in Taiwan. Then again, they don’t have plastic where he’s from, so maybe flip flops would be worth more.

“My lady,” he says, averting his eyes to his long, flexing toes, “is there a place where it is permissible for one to bathe?”

“Oh, uh, sure. The bathroom’s right over here.”

She leads him the bathroom and shows him how to work the sink, the toilet, and the shower. She points out where she keeps the soap, shampoo, washcloths, and towels.

“I should get you something clean to wear,” she says. “I don’t think I have anything that can fit you except maybe a bathrobe.”

“Whatever you may spare is greatly appreciated,” he says, and he stares at her again in that deep way. Her face suddenly feels very warm.

“I, um, I gotta go pick up something to eat. You have a taste for something specific?”

Time seems to slow as he shakes his head. As he blinks, she notices that his eyelashes are long, dark, and delicate. She almost wants to reach up and touch them, but time returns to its normal pace before she gathers the courage to do it.

“Right. I, er, I should go.”

“Yes, my lady,” he says. “Safe journey.”

She is struck by that deep sense of familiarity again as he gently places his hand next to his heart and extends it outward, dipping his head down and raising it up as he does so. She gives him a little wave then leaves.


	2. Chapter 2

 

> _Why do I keep my mind_  
>  _On you all the time?_  
>  _And I don’t even know you (I don’t know you)_
> 
> _Why do I feel this way?_  
>  _Thinking about you every day_  
>  _And I don’t even know you (I don’t know you)_
> 
> _Take me in your arms_  
>  _Thrill me with all of your charms_
> 
> _And I’ll take to the sky, oh, the natural high_  
>  _Loving you more till the day I die_  
>  _Take to the sky, oh, the natural high_  
>  _Loving you more_  –Bloodstone, “Natural High”

Thranduil sits in his car parked across the police station.  _Wait and watch_ , said the uncanny force to his  _fae_. He has waited and watched since the sun was at its zenith, painting the city a muted gray that’s as bright as it ever gets. Now, the sun creeps toward the west behind the skyscrapers and thick, slate-gray clouds, the sun creeps toward the west.

He flips through a copy of the Detroit City Voice, paying special attention to the crime section.

 

 

> **City Police Prepare For Devil’s Night. Rumors Say This Year’s Devil’s Night To Be Worst Since 1993.**

The story about a John Doe tugs his intuition. As he reads, every word seems startlingly familiar.

 

 

> **Thrift Store John Doe Still Not Identified.**
> 
> _The John Doe who was arrested two nights ago has yet to be identified. Police speculate that with his lack of identification and seeming inability to speak English, he could be an undocumented immigrant._
> 
> _John Doe remains in custody at the 13th Precinct._

Aside from being arrested, this describes the circumstances of his coming to this world with remarkable accuracy. A group of young men (boys, really) found him naked as a hatchling in the English countryside a few years before the Great War. Robert, Edmund, and Peter fed him, clothed him, cut his hair, and taught him to speak and read English. They all died in the trenches, felled by bullets and barbed wire and mustard gas. The grief of their passing sent their mother Helen beyond the circles of the world shortly thereafter.

He still has nightmares about the gruesome ways men invented to kill each other in this world’s twentieth century. The memory of the things he saw at the liberation of Buchenwald still have the power to make him feel ill. He still dreams of napalm streaking fire across the dense, green jungle, burning all in its wake: women, children, birds, and beasts. He can’t even bear fireworks without getting flashbacks to Vietnam and the great serpents of the North.

The strange force pushes him from the grip of memory and urges him to watch a slightly pudgy man of average height with a mustache straight from the ‘70s. Though his face says he must be in his late forties or early fifties, his hair has gone almost entirely gray. He ascends the steps to the station. Thranduil gets out of the car and trots across the street to the station.

The inside of the station reeks of despair and simmering rage. It comes from the police as much as it does from those in handcuffs. Thranduil pushes that awareness to the back of his mind and quickly finds the man he saw enter the building. Keen Elvish sight picks up the name Ramirez engraved on a metal name tag. Ramirez watches his computer screen as his fingers fly across the keyboard. A scant forty years ago, typing was seen as a woman’s skill. Time, it seems, has a sense of irony.

Thranduil weaves through the bodies walking to and fro like wind as he mentally prepares what to say next. 

“May I help you?” says Ramirez in the bored monotone of someone who has asked that question one too many times.

“Good afternoon, sir. I’m a correspondent from the Detroit City Voice. We ran a story about a John Doe a couple of days ago. I’m here to see if there are any updates you’d like to share.”

Ramirez looks at him, the suspicion writ clear on his face.

“John Doe was released this morning,” says Ramirez. “No one pressed charges.”

“Has anyone identified him?”

“Nope. He spoke some gibberish in the interrogation room, and some girl came to pick him up.

“Who picked him up?”

“Look, I wasn’t here. Ask Blake.”

Thranduil scans the precinct and catches the name tag reading “Blake” on a smooth-faced young man who seems barely out of his teens. Were it not for the round ears and stubble struggling to emerge from his smooth skin, he could be mistaken for an Elf. But the glaring thing about Blake that advertises that he’s still a rookie is the unrestrained enthusiasm for his job. He’s the only one here smiling.

“Officer Blake,” he says.

“May I help you, sir?” asks Blake, grinning wide and showing his white, even teeth. Thranduil wonders, briefly, if Blake smiles so much now because he once wore braces and is making up for the years he spent with chunks of metal in his mouth.

“I’m from the Detroit City Voice. I was just talking to Officer Ramirez, and he tells me that you were present when the John Doe was released earlier today.”

“Yeah, I was.”

“Do you mind telling me what you observed about John Doe? Anything that struck you as noteworthy or odd in any way?”

“Well,” says Blake, thinking, “He spoke some foreign language. Sounded like gibberish if you ask me, but the lady who picked him up seemed to understand it.”

“I see. Was there anything else?”

“No. Well–nevermind, it’s too crazy.”

“I assure you this is strictly off the record. I only ask because I want to know.”

“OK, while they were talking, the girl said some things to him that makes me think he believes he’s a fictional character.”

“You don’t say?”

Thranduil considers this for a moment. Strange language, fictional character, the strange dreams that haunted him in his reverie. What is the likelihood of this John Doe being like him, an Elf from Middle-earth en route to the Undying Lands who awakened in a new world?

“Do you know much about  _Lord of the Rings_?”

“I’ve seen the films.”

That is a lie. Thranduil  _tried_  to see the films, but the actors’ resemblance to their characters was too uncanny to continue beyond the point where Legolas arrives in Rivendell. By some strange machination of fate, each actor was perfectly cast.

“John Doe thinks he’s Elrond.”

Thranduil laughs, but it isn’t for the reason Blake thinks.

“I know, right? That’s not something you hear everyday.”

“That’s putting it mildly. Who picked him up?”

“Um…I’m not sure I’m supposed to give out that information.”

“I’m just trying to follow up on the story. That’s all.”

Blake worries his lip for a good minute before he answers.

“Look, I can’t tell you who picked him up or give you an address, but I can tell you that he was arrested two nights ago at Thrifty Stylez–that’s Stylez with a ‘z.’ It’s not too far from here.”

“Thank you, Officer Blake,” says Thranduil, extending his hand. Blake shakes it firmly and gets back to work.

As soon as his back is turned, Thranduil punches the Thrifty Stylez into Google Maps and starts navigation.

 

Left to his own devices for the time being, Elrond searches the lady’s abode for something to occupy his mind while she is away. He quickly locates a bookshelf. The sheer number of books she has astonishes him. Lady Nichelle must be a loremaster of some kind in her world to have so many in her possession, for even the most learned in Middle-earth–save himself perhaps–own no more than five or ten volumes. He marvels at the variety of scripts contained within their pages, though the letters themselves are of a kind unknown to him. Some of the books are naught but images exquisitely rendered in line and color. On the front cover of one such tome there is depicted a rugged Man of noble bearing whose likeness is so like Estel’s that it startles him.

Exploring Lady Nichelle’s home further, he finds an arrangement of images, all of various sizes, depicting the lady herself as well as other people. Clear glass forms a protective cover over each image. The images themselves are, by a skill none other than Nerdanel may possess, rendered in such intricate detail that they seem almost alive.

He strides across Nichelle’s home and pauses when he sees his reflection in a flat rectangular mirror made of dark glass. Next to it on the table there is a device with many buttons upon it. Elrond picks it up and examines it, pushing a few of the buttons to see what it does. He flinches when the strange mirror comes to life. His mouth hangs open when he presses more buttons and sees more images, all of them in crisp, lifelike detail, as though he were part of the visions he sees. This mirror must be some sort of  _palantír_.

He tries more buttons, and he ducks as a dragon roars and soars toward him, belching flames. He instinctively reaches for a sword that isn’t there. Again, he taps buttons, and flinches at the thunderous cracking sound of the odd weapons of the Men of this world. He taps the buttons some more, and the mirror shows Men in colorful tunics running along a huge green meadow and kicking a white ball back and forth across it.

There is so much to learn about this world. Perhaps this is why the Valar have sent him here: that he may glean what wisdom he may from this realm and enrich his people with new knowledge.  _Or_ , whispers a dark voice from within,  _You have been abandoned again._ He shakes his head, banishing the turn of his thoughts. He cannot allow such thoughts to take root, not when his mind must be clear and sharp. 

If Bilbo Baggins were here, he would think of all this as part of some great adventure. He can imagine Mr. Baggins calling the tale, “The Hobbit and the Elf-Lord” or something similar. Mithrandir would say something vague and metaphysical that places these strange events into some kind of cosmic perspective and, in its way, bestow wisdom and encouragement. Then he would light his pipe and puff, making shapes in the smoke and spreading the scent of tobacco everywhere despite however many times Elrond asks, both politely and not-so-politely, that he smoke outdoors. Lady Galadriel would remind him of what is best about him and, in so doing, give him the strength to go on despite the uncertainty of what lies ahead. Then she and Mithrandir would share a look, then a smile, and Elrond would tell them, mind-to-mind, to get a room.

Such things he shall tell them when he sees them again! Giddy with excitement, he laughs. He hasn’t felt so enchanted since he was a child. Everything here is new and strange and wonderful. An entire world is waiting to be discovered: new realms to travel, new peoples to encounter, new objects of power and beauty to behold. With so much to see and to do, he doesn’t notice as the weariness of the world lifts, and his strength and vigor of old returns to him.

Who knows how long he may dwell in this world? He must learn all he can without delay, and he shall commit to memory all that Lady Nichelle deems fit to impart upon him. Speaking of which, she is due to return at any moment, and he must make himself presentable for the meal she will prepare. He picks up the items she set aside for him for when he decided to bathe. Despite his disastrous lapse in judgment at their first meeting, she has shown, even in this simple gesture, great kindness to him. He owes her a debt of gratitude, and he shall repay her with more than thankful words.

He walks into the bathroom, twists the knob to turn on the water as Lady Nichelle instructed. Placing his hand under the steady stream, he flinches at how cold it is then recalls that turning the knob leftward adds heat. He does so, and the water becomes pleasingly warm. He peels off his borrowed garments and steps inside the…what was the word her mind supplied for it?…the shower. The heat and powerful spray feel like hundreds of fingers massaging his skin. Steam and water ease the tension he didn’t know he carried. He reaches for the bar of soap and gives himself a quick, vigorous wash. He plucks a tiny bottle of shampoo from the edge of the bathtub and squeezes some into his palm. It smells like honey and spices. He works his fingers into his scalp and sings the notes of a soothing song that Nichelle played on what she identifies as a radio. Once he is clean and rinsed, he puts the nozzles back in their original positions and steps out of the bath. He wrings the water from his hair and pats himself dry with the hand towel. Steam billows out the bathroom when he exits, wiping the last few droplets off his body.

The shower is amazing. Only minutes beneath the gushing water, and he feels as if he spent an hour in a hot spring. As enjoyable as the shower is, he doubts this is the reason why he is here. The pleasure of it is short-lived, for when he turns, he sees Nichelle standing at the door holding two bags and gawking at him. Just as Elrond is about to cover himself and apologize, her knees buckle, and she faints.

 

Nichelle lies naked on a bed of clouds. Elrond, gloriously nude, stands before her. This high up, the moonlight makes him seem to glow. Silently, he sinks to his knees. He drapes his sleek, hard physique over her and does exquisite things to her body.

 _My lady_ , he whispers between deep, ragged breaths.  _My lady. My lady. My lady._

“Lady Nichelle!”

Her eyes fly open and dart to and fro. Warmth and comfort surround her, and it’s now when she realizes that she’s being held in Elrond’s arms. He has his clothes on now (pity), but the scent of the shampoo he borrowed still lingers on his slightly damp hair. She should be squirming right now, but it feels so natural, so safe.

“What happened?”

“You swooned,” he says. Again, his words seem out of sync with his lips, like on one of those old school kung fu movies. Waitaminute–did he say “swoon”? Like those Victorian ladies who fainted in their petticoats? She giggles. Swoon, God!

“Did you hit your head?” he asks. She shakes her head.

“I have taken the liberty of dressing myself in the garments you brought,” he says, “They fit well and are most comfortable, though not in the style to which I am accustomed. I can remove them if it was not your wish for me to–”

The thought of seeing Elrond naked again sends her mind reeling with the possibilities, but her upbringing intervenes before she can get clever.

“It’s OK; you can wear them. It’s why I got ‘em. You look–”

Gorgeous. Delicious. Fucking amazing.

“You look good.”

“I do?” he asks, his eyes lighting up as a bashful smile spreads across his face. He brushes nonexistent lint from the blazer. The gesture is endearingly familiar. Nichelle glances around her. Something is missing from the bags she dropped.

“What happened to the food?” she asks.

“I placed it on what I assume is the dining table,” says Elrond. He lifts her to her feet.

“Shall we eat?” he asks. Nichelle growling tummy answers.

She hopes Elrond likes Chinese. She got them the super value meal that comes with three entrees, two appetizers, and a two-liter soda for twenty dollars. The mini-banquet laid before this consists of two egg rolls, hot and sour soup, steamed vegetables, General Tso’s chicken, Mongolian beef, and Sprite.

Elrond takes his first bite of the eggroll, eyebrows raising as he makes a small hum of satisfaction. He eats the soup with refined gusto. He’s initially awkward with chopsticks, but he picks it up right away after she shows him how to hold the sticks and pick up chunks of vegetables, meat, and rice.

“This is quite practical,” he remarks as he puts some of each dish on his plate, “It eliminates the need for additional cutlery save perhaps a spoon for soup. They seem much simpler to clean as well.”

Nichelle nods absently and tries not to watch Elrond eat lest she imagine him putting other warm, moist things into his mouth. She places a piece of Mongolian beef in her mouth and doesn’t entirely succeed at not thinking about her lips closing around another hot, fleshy thing. Elrond chokes on his piece of General Tso’s chicken.

“You OK?” she asks, gently resting her hand on his arm. Elrond nods and swallows the morsel. Maybe it’s her imagination, but he seems to be breathing harder.

He says, “I…uh…I am fine.”

When they finish eating, it’s time for her to get ready to go to work. Devil’s Night is tomorrow, and she has to make sure the place is still standing the day after. Before she leaves, she uses a stack of extra blankets to make a pallet on the floor for Elrond to sleep on. It’s not a bed, not even an air mattress, but it should do until she picks up something better.

She is relieved to finally leave the loft. She doesn’t think she has the willpower to be near Elrond for more a few of hours at a time. She fervently locks the door behind her as if to ward off her arousal. There’s no mistaking it; she was minutes shy of throwing herself at him. He would’ve turned her down with a polite  _thanks but no thanks_  or the cool dismissal of  _sorry I’m not into Black chicks_ , and she would’ve wished the ground to open up and swallow her whole.

 _But what if he said yes?_ asks the part of her mind that only wants to get it on. _Wasn’t there the slightest bulge in those pants? Didn’t he walk just a tad stiffly? Mmmm, stiff._

She shakes her head. Her id is a damn lie. There’s nothing more to that than wishful thinking. She’s lonely and horny; that’s all. It’s just playing tricks on her mind.

 

As he watches the city get bathed in dirty orange light, Elrond curses himself for a fool. The vivid images projected from Lady Nichelles mind made her interest abundantly clear, but what did he do? What did he say? Nothing! He merely sat there and chewed like some witless lump of flesh. It served him right to choke.

Others who hold him in high esteem may attribute his reticence to fidelity to his wife, but this is only partially true.  _Admit it, you coward; you’re just afraid she will laugh in your face_. Though he must say no to any advances she makes, he does wants to say yes so badly, for Lady Nichelle arouses urges he has not felt toward any since he first lay eyes on Celebrían. If Lady Nichelle were to catch him unawares, deep in the loneliness that has been his companion since Celebrían sailed West, he is not sure he will be able to resist, and there is no certainty about whether it will bode well or ill for him to take solace in Lady Nichelle’s arms.

It reminds him of something Elros once told him.

_They stand on the balcony of the royal palace of Númenor watching the ships come in with the tide._

_“Do you know the difference between Elves and Men?” asks Elros.  
_

_“Men die,” he says. Elros laughs. Elrond knows not why he does so, for it is no jest._

_“I do not believe so. I believe–will you please put down that dusty old scroll and talk to me?–that even if Men were endowed with a lifespan extending unto the end of Arda, there would be a tremendous difference between us and Elves.”_

_Elrond bristles at the way Elros says “us,” knowing it no longer refers to the two of them, brother with brother against the world of naysayers who call them lords and princes to their face and the fosterlings of Kinslayers behind their back._

_“What, pray tell, is your revelation about the difference in nature between Men and Elves?”  
_

_“In the end, Elves regret the things they do. Men regret the things they don’t do.”  
_

_“That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.”  
_

_Thus follows the Athrabeth Elros Tar-Minyatur ah Elrond Peredhel, for Elrond argues that all things Men do emerge from their fear of death while Elros maintains that it is inherent in the race of Men._

But Elros was wrong. Elrond regrets much of what he did not do. He regrets the missed opportunities to communicate to those dearest to him how much they mean to him. He regrets he years he spent not forgiving the follies of others, allowing contempt and resentment to spread like weeds that choke the respect and affection that once thrived. He regrets his failure to protect those closest to him from harm, that for all his supposed wisdom, he was powerless to save them when they needed him most.

Elrond sighs. There is no clear course of action from here, for there is the potential for great sorrow no matter what he does or doesn’t do. Such, it seems, is his lot in life.

 

The city holds is breath in anticipation of what comes tomorrow night. Few save the occasional stray dog or cat walk the streets at this hour. Tomorrow night at this time, even they will have vanished into their hidey-holes while the city burns.

Nichelle glances at the clock on the wall. It’s nineteen after ten. She locks the back door first, as is her new habit, for she was extremely lucky that Elrond had come through there and not someone far less benevolent. When the back door is secure, she goes to the front door and hangs the sign announcing tomorrow’s hours.

**WE CLOSE AT 7PM ON DEVIL’S NIGHT (OCTOBER 30).**

With that out of the way, she picks up her dog-eared copy of  _The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla_  and reads about Roland and his  _ka-tet_  saving a small town from cybernetic werewolves. Her imagination casts Elrond in the role of Roland. Picturing him in a cowboy hat and big cowboy boots with a six-shooter at his side is far less ridiculous than it would sound if she spoke it aloud. They both share a timeless, otherworldly quality that is hard to put into words.

At ten-forty, Twinkie calls the store to check on her.

“Coast is clear,” says Nichelle.

“Nobody left anything in lost and found?”

“Nah, it’s all good.”

Someone leaving something in lost and found is their new code phrase for something being wrong. If Nichelle says someone left something in lost and found, that’s Twinkie’s cue to hang up and call the cops.

“A’ight, then. You take care. Call me when you get home.”

At ten-forty-five on the dot, the door buzzes as a customer walks in. A tall, lean guy with short, spiky blond hair enters the store. Everything about him, from the tailored clothes to the well-shined shoes, says that he’s not the kind of customer Thrifty Stylez is used to getting. Yet something about him seems familiar in the same way that Elrond seemed familiar. Maybe she saw him on TV or something.

“May I help you?”

“Yes,” says Not A Thrifty Stylez Kind Of Guy, “I was wondering if I can talk to the person who closed a couple of nights ago.”

“Regarding?” she asks. There’s something too polished about his manner for him to simply be a random customer peeking in.

“I’m with the Detroit City Voice, and I’m following up on the John Doe story.”

“Look, I’m about to close, and I don’t want to do an interview.”

“No, no, it’s not an interview. I just need to share any updates on the story that you or someone else may have. I just have a couple of questions. Nothing about you personally just a fact-check for accuracy.”

“Alright.”

“Did you identify John Doe?”

“More or less.”

“Who is he?”

“I’m not the right person to ask about that.”

“Do you know where he is?”

Nichelle is about to answer when she sees something that makes her do a double take. For a flicker of an instant, half his face seems to melt, a gruesome half-mask of bone and tendon clutching a milky white eye set within it like a pearl. She must have flinched when she saw it because he touches his face as if to make sure it’s still there.

First Elrond has a huge boner, and now Two Face is walking into Thrifty Stylez. Yep, her mind is playing tricks on her.

“You saw that?” says the customer, dropping all pretense of being any kind of reporter. Nichelle eases back from the counter. If she makes a break for it, she can run to the back room and lock the door. There’s a phone in there, so she can call 911 in there too.

“No, please don’t run. I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Says the guy who started off by lying to me.”

“I know. Listen,” he says, keeping his hands visible on the counter, “if it makes you feel better, I’ll take a step back and not come any nearer to you or the counter. I just need you to hear me out. After I say what I have to say, I’ll go.”

“You have ten seconds.”

The guy rolls his eyes. “Oh, come on! At least give me thirty.”

“Nine.”

“My name is Thranduil. I’m looking for Elrond Halfelven.”

Of all the things Nichelle expects, that is not it. But there’s one thing…

“How do you speak English?”

“I’ve had a century to pick it up. Can we go somewhere to talk?”

“I ain’t going nowhere with you.”

“Fine, you pick the place and time, and I’ll be there, but I think you know we have much to talk about. Here,” he says, slowly reaching into his pocket and taking out his wallet. He opens it. Nichelle briefly glimpses what looks like a driver’s license and several credit cards. Thranduil pinches a card from inside the wallet and places it on the counter.

“When you’re ready, call this number. I’ll be in town for another couple of days.”

Thranduil leaves the store as quickly and quietly as he entered it. Nichelle has no idea what she’s gonna tell Twinkie about all this.

 

Twinkie puts up the last of the flyers. She and Nicki made hundreds of copies on bright paper and posted them all over the city. It’s hard out here for trans ladies any day of the year, but Devil’s Night takes more of a toll than usual. The police and so-called LGBT community don’t do shit at the best of times, but when Devil’s Night rolls around, there’s no way they’re gonna get off their asses and help.

**ATTENTION TRANS SISTERS  
DON’T GET CAUGHT OUT ON DEVIL’S NIGHT  
IF YOU NEED A PLACE TO STAY, CALL 313-555-0012**

It took a while to build a network of people willing to let a trans sister crash for a night, but hopefully the dozen or so hosts will be enough. Last year, some assholes tagged her car with transphobic slurs. Twinkie had sobbed as she scrubbed big red letters that said TRANNY and SHEMALE and KILL YOURSELF. She scrubbed until her hands were raw, but it didn’t budge. It was a pink smear by the time Nicki came by to visit. It didn’t come off until Nicki used a bottle of some brand of Brazilian car wax she got from Auto Zone. Even so, she was luckier than the trans ladies who woke up in the hospital or the morgue.

This year, if anybody tries to tag her car or start any kind of shit, she’ll tag them with her friend Mr. Aluminum Baseball Bat. Her phone comes to life with Peaches’ “I U She.”

“Hey, Nicki.”

“Hey, Twinkie.”

“What you do?”

“Why I gotta be doin’ wrong?”

“You got that, ‘I’ma say somethin’ and I know you ain’t gon’ like it’ tone in your voice.”

There’s a pause. Twinkie fills it with imagining Nicki worrying her lip in that cute, childlike way she does when she’s not sure what to say next.

“I need your advice,” says Nicki.

“That’s fifty dollars straight-up plus a hundred for the Not Gonna Listen Anyway fee.”

“I’m serious.”

“Hurry up; I ain’t got all day.”

“A’ight, um…let’s say that, hypothetically speaking, there’s been an undocumented immigrant staying at my place for a little while. And, hypothetically speaking, he’d been in police custody when I picked him up.”

“What the fuck you–”

“I know, I know. But here’s my question: what if, hypothetically speaking, this undocumented immigrant knows someone who may or may not be able to help. Should I meet with them? What would you do?”

“I don’t know what the hell to tell you. That’s beyond my area of expertise.”

“What would you do?”

“I wouldn’t be in that mess. Shit, girl, you on your own. All I can say is just don’t get caught out tonight.“

“A’ight. Thanks, Twink.”

“I told you ‘bout calling me that.”

Nicki laughs and hangs up. Twinkie doesn’t understand that girl sometimes.

 

A pregnant hush has settled over the city. There’s a muted quality to the usual urban sounds. Jackhammers pounding into pavement sound like they’re dozens of feet underground. Horns beep as though from far away. The traffic guards blow their whistles, but only a low trill comes out. It’s as though a huge blanket of silence has been spread over the city, and only the most determined sounds can emerge. This no blessedly quiet day in Detroit. Its the calm before the storm.

Thranduil sits at a table by the window in Pointy’s, a French-style cafe in the heart of downtown. The pristine interior with its spotless wine glasses and crisp white tablecloths are a jarring foil to the muck and grime outside. checks his watch. It’s 12:19PM. Nichelle and Elrond are almost twenty minutes late. Either that, or she’s not coming at all. The kingly pride he keeps tucked away bristles at this show of disregard. It is he who is supposed to keep them waiting, not the other way around. He orders a café au lait and is pleasantly surprised that it’s not as awful as Americanized Parisian coffee is. If they’re not here when he finishes his cup, he’s leaving.

He wakes up his phone and swipes the screen, fingers instinctively tapping the combination of digits to dial home.

“What do you want?”

“Hi, sweetheart. How’s everything at home?”

“I needed extra spending money, so I sold your bike.”

“Don’t touch my bike.”

“Just kidding. By the way, the children are fond of their new daddy. You shouldn’t come home. It will only confuse them.”

“They’re not my children anyway. They look nothing like me.”

“I really like my new husband. He’s tall and handsome and rich. He’s perfect.”

“And dumb as bricks, I assume.”

“Absolutely. Rich idiots make the best husbands.”

Thranduil laughs. Tien is the only one who can elicit such an unguarded response from him. He will miss this about her after she…leaves. His peripheral vision catches two figures, one tall and one short, and he recognizes the distinctly Elvish gait of the tall one. Nichelle walks quickly to keep pace with his long, even strides. He briefly notes to tease her about having Hobbit ancestry when he gets the chance.

“Hey, baby, I have to go.”

“OK, bye.”

Elrond is holding the door for Nichelle as he hangs up. When he enters, Thranduil loses a breath. Even in denim jeans and a casual three-quarter length jacket, his stature and bearing are unmistakable. Before his sense of decorum can catch up with him, he rushes toward Elrond and pulls him into a tight embrace, laughing and weeping like a child. It takes a few minutes for him to regain his composure.

“I believe you have met Lady Nichelle,” he says, gesturing to the woman who looks at him with clear, dark eyes that give him the distinct impression that she’s taking the measure of him. He would never admit it, but her gaze is unsettling in a way not unlike that of Lady Galadriel. They make their introductions and sit and Thranduil’s table. The waiter soon brings a tray of coffee cups, cream, and sugar.

It’s been over a century since he’s spoken the language of his people with another native speaker, but with Elrond there, it’s as though no time has passed at all. Elrond is most eager to know what became of his children after he boarded the ship to the West.

“By all accounts, your daughter and foster son were blissfully happy until Aragorn’s passing. She laid herself to rest in Cerin Amroth soon thereafter. As for your sons, they were still hunting Orcs with the Dúnedain even after the death of Aragorn.”

Elrond takes such grave tidings with the dignity and respect befitting a great lord of the Eldar, but Thranduil knows he will grieve them privately as he himself still does for Legolas. Even so, the devastation is written all over his face. He wishes he knew what words and gestures could console him, but he draws a blank at what response is appropriate for such unimaginable sadness. Thankfully, Nichelle puts a hand on Elrond’s back and offers no words, though the look on her face says all. Why had he not thought of that?

“I am fine,” he says, though both he and Nichelle know that he’s the furthest thing from fine as anyone can be.

Nichelle dissipates the awkwardness of this moment by asking him how he came to be in this world. It’s a welcome reprieve from dead and missing children.

“It seems the Valar have a twisted sense of humor,” he says, “I get on the ship and sail then off in the distance I see a tall structure standing in a vast expanse of red. I thought, ‘Well, that’s quick,’ but suddenly, instead of standing on the deck of the ship, I’m standing in the middle of a desert. I start walking and somehow I find myself amidst an endless field of the most exquisite roses the like of which I have never seen. At first, I thought I had come by some alternate road to the Garden of Lorien in Valinor, but I do not recall any depictions that included a tower that rose high above the clouds.”

Elrond makes a face as though he has realized something important. Thranduil pauses. “What?”

“Nothing,” says Elrond, “Please, continue.”

“There was something about the tower. I cannot recall any other detail save its great height. I cannot even recall if it was fear or wonder that made me run or whether I ran toward it or away from it. In any case, I woke up in a meadow in the English countryside as naked as the day i was born.”

Elrond listens without further comment as Thranduil tells the rest of the story. For the first time in a century, he speaks of his arrival in this world and how the twentieth century sounds like a machine gun. He tells the story of the Great War: the precise, mechanized destruction of MG08s cutting men apart like they were made of paper; barbed wire snagging on people and horses who crawled toward agonizing deaths; the terror of watching sickly yellow gas spread through the trenches and blood-curdling screams of those who were too slow in putting on their masks.

“Do you know what irony is, Lord Elrond? Not the concept, the reality. Irony is enlisting to serve in the British army and being assigned to the same regiment as none other than John Ronald Reuel Tolkien.”

“You knew Tolkien?” asked Nichelle.

“I was briefly acquainted with him. We hid in the same trench hoping the enemy didn’t have mustard gas. Aside from a vague sense that he would not die in the war, I had not the slightest idea what he would do in the future.”

“Would you have told him everything if you did?”

“I would certainly have corrected him about a few things.”

“I almost don’t want to know what you think about the movies,” says Nichelle.

“They’re more accurate than the books in some instances. Except for making all the Elves pale as sheets.” 

Nichelle snorts in her coffee. If he times his funny moments more carefully, she will certainly do a spit-take. It’s one of the few moments of levity in his telling of his time here thus far.

Elrond seems shocked when Thranduil describes the even more terrible Second World War that arrived a mere twenty years later. Shock turns to disgust and horror when he gets to the part about the Holocaust and the emaciated corpses piled into mass graves reeking so badly that even hardened veterans became ill. 

He understands Elrond’s confusion. The wholesale slaughter of entire peoples for the express purpose of utterly eradicating them is an incomprehensible concept in Middle-earth. Horror and confusion become open disbelief when Thranduil says that there are some today who deny it ever happened. Thranduil wasn’t there for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but he gives an account of two cities instantly turned to ash, leaving behind a wasteland where nothing grew for decades.

When he speaks of Korea and Vietnam, Elrond simply shakes his head in dismay. Perhaps he has painted too grim a picture of this world, so he talks about the things that pique Elrond’s interest. He is pleased with himself to have guessed rightly when he chooses to speak of advances in science and medicine: antibiotics, vaccines, organ transplants, and better treatments for the withering disease known in this world as cancer. The look of incredulity on Elrond’s face when he talks about cloning and the moon landing is priceless. He can’t wait to tell him about the Mars project and the birth of artificial intelligence.

“How has the knowledge of arts and letters progressed?” asks Elrond.

“I do not believe this restaurant will remain open long enough for us to discuss it.”

There is something about the way Elrond behaves around Nichelle that makes Thranduil wonder what’s going on between those two. Elrond frequently glances at her, and each time he does so, there’s the barest hint of a smile. As Thranduil speaks, Elrond makes every effort to include her in their conversation, though how she understands their language is a mystery to unravel some other time. It’s possible that Elrond is simply being gracious and polite– _too_  gracious and polite. When Nichelle visits the ladies’ washroom, Elrond’s eyes track her movements like a hound on a scent trail.

“You sly, old fox. You wasted no time at all.”

“What?”

“Oh, don’t play coy. How long did it take you and she to–”

“I refuse to dignify that with a response. She is my host, and I will not have you suggest lewd things about her.”

“Your host. I see.”

Elrond responds with strained calm. “Whatever you are imagining, that is not the situation here. I am her guest, and it is not my habit to seduce people who provide me with food, clothing, and shelter. Besides, we have only known each other two days. And…I am married.”

It takes a lot for Thranduil not to grin at finally finding the weak spot in the composure of the most unflappable individual in all of Middle-earth. It will take all his self-control to keep from poking at it.

“How long did it take for you to know you loved Celebrían?”

“Shut up.”

 

When Nichelle comes back from the ladies’ room, Elrond turns to her, and his eyes sparkle with the reflected light of the restaurant. He grins at her, and for a moment she wonders if–nah, maybe that’s just an Elf thing. Thranduil gives her a sidelong look that has a hint of conspiracy to it.

“I hope you gentlemen weren’t talking about anything improper while I was gone.”

Elrond immediately turns his head toward his cup of coffee and seems to take great interest in the shapes made by the steam coming off it.

“Lord Elrond has been regaling me with stories about the many ways he’s had his wicked way with you.”

“Said like someone who’s not getting any,” she quips before she remembers to watch her mouth. Elrond chuckles.

“For your information, I’m happily married to a lovely wife named Tien.”

“That poor woman. You do realize that the days of hitting us on the head and dragging us to your cave are over, right?”

“Practically yesterday for an Elf.”

They all laugh. The fading light outside says that it’s near dusk. The clock on the wall says it’s 5:19 PM. It will be dark in less than an hour and a half, and it will officially be Devil’s Night.

“Fuck, I gotta get outta here,” she says, digging into her purse for a few crumpled bills.

Thranduil restrains her with a light touch on her arm. “No, it’s my treat.”

“You ready?” she asks Elrond, but his response is a sheepish expression on his face.

“I am afraid I shall not join you,” he says. Nichelle’s heart sinks. Of course. What did she expect. He had to leave sooner or later. But did he have to go this soon?

“I do not wish it was so,” he quickly adds, “However, there is much that Thranduil and I need to discuss and a great deal I must know of this world that is easier learned from one who is also from Middle-earth. I know not how much time he and I will need, and I cannot further impose upon your hospitality.”

She wants to beg him to stay. She wants to hold him close and tell him that he can impose whenever and however long he wants to, but the words don’t come. God, she misses him already.

The only thing that comes out is her meek, “Oh.”

He takes her hand in both of his as gently as if he were handling glass. His hands are smooth and warm. The sensation of his thumb lightly brushing against her fingers makes her tingle all over.  _Do not fret_ , he says in that soft voice that speaks directly to her mind,  _this is not forever_. She wants to ask how he can know that, but the moment is over before she has a chance to say anything.

The perfect gentleman, Elrond helps her into her coat and escorts her to the car. He opens the door for her. She steps into the car.

“Be careful.”

“I shall.”

“Call me when you can?”

“As soon as I learn how. You have my word.”

He shuts the door and stands fixed on the spot as she buckles up and keys the ignition. He still hasn’t moved when she pulls out her parking space and creeps toward the edge of the lot. The setting sun makes the details of his face hazy, but to Nichelle, his posture shows a subtle resignation. She puts her eyes on the road and turns onto the darkening street.


	3. Chapter 3

 

> _Well I could play with Tom, Dick and Harry_  
>  _But for me you’re the only one_  
>  _Who makes me me shiver, makes me tingle_  
>  _And who brings my loving down_
> 
> _I played the love game before I met him_  
>  _It’s a game I’ve always won_  
>  _But now you set my soul on fire_  
>  _And I really had my fun_  –LaVern Baker, “Soul On Fire”

If one views Devil’s Night from a height far removed from Motor City’s mean and mucky streets–say, from the vantage point of a window seat on a 747–Detroit seems like a garden of lights. One by one, buildings put to torch blaze like fiery roses. A discriminating viewer–like yourself, perhaps–notices that most of the blossoming flames are concentrated in the poor and working class parts of the city.

If closer to the ground–say, at the top of a skyscraper–you see a pattern to the urban chaos. The flashing lights and blaring sirens of police cars only come to those few fires erupting in the upscale part of downtown. 

If you’re a fly on the wall in some of the homes as Devil’s Night rages through the city, you get an earful of what people really think about Devil’s Night.

_“I feel bad for the people who lost their homes, but c’mon, they chose to live there.”  
_

_“There comes a time when you have to stop whining and pull yourself up by our bootstraps.”  
_

_“Betcha half of ‘em are doing it themselves for the insurance money.”_

_“At least now somebody can come in and fix that place up.”  
_

_“I say let ‘em all burn. City’s better off without those people.“_

And if you’re a crow perched on a gravestone in a certain cemetery, you see Glen Albrecht, formerly of the Detroit PD, rest a bundle of flowers on two graves.

 

If Thranduil had ever entertained notions of pursuing teaching in any official capacity whatsoever, the forty-hour trip from Detroit to San Diego soundly disabuses him of such a ridiculous notion.

Elrond is by no means slow of wit. His powers of reasoning and comprehension and the breadth and depth of his knowledge is phenomenal even among the Elves. He would be in like company among the Isaac Newtons and Leonardo da Vincis of this world. Moreover, his thirst for knowledge runs deep.

But when Thranduil crosses into Iowa, he’s ready to tear his hair out.

It starts off well enough. He masters the alphabet within minutes. After an hour passes, he has a working vocabulary of roughly a hundred words, most of which come from repeating the English words for various objects Elrond points at or Thranduil translating words from Sindarin. Two hours later, he knows how to increase his own vocabulary by directly asking the meaning of words he hears or which words go with a certain meaning.

This leads to an interesting moment when, after some confusion about U.S. currency at a gas station, Elrond asks, “What does dumbfuck mean?”

He should have known this was too easy, for a defining trait of brilliant people like Elrond is that they ask many, many questions, and they have a preference for the ones that begin with “How?” and “Why?”

“There are no less than forty-five different sounds in this language, yet the alphabet only uses twenty-six letters. Why is this so?”

“How does the past tense of ‘go’ become ‘went’?”

“By what means does this vehicle move on its own?”

Thranduil stops at a Barnes and Noble in Des Moines to pick up a dictionary and a few nice, thick books for Elrond to read. This shuts him up for a few hours while he reads through them at a pace he’d say is unbelievable if not for the fact that he is sitting in the car seeing him do it. It’s not long before Elrond pipes up with more questions.

“Why does this realm not use the metric system?”

“How exactly does the radio work?”

“The authors of this book say that the male’s seed determines the sex of the child. How do they know this to be true?”

“How do airplanes avoid being struck by lightning?”

“What if the Door of Night is actually a black hole, and it is the gravitational pull of such an object that prevents Morgoth’s escape?”

He calls upon all the patience he can muster, which is not much, for he was once brand new to this world and utterly ignorant of its workings. 

Thranduil will never say it aloud, but what grates is not the number or nature of the questions Elrond asks. They are simple, innocent questions any person would have. What bothers him most about it is how often Thranduil must say he doesn’t know, and Elrond has a way of asking simple, innocent questions that reminds others–and by others, this refers to Thranduil himself–how little they know and how little they care to know. The revelation that one is blissfully ignorant about things it would be beneficial to know is not a comforting one, to say the least.

“Do you think they have electricity in Aman?”

By Elbereth! If he’s this bad as an adult, he must have driven Elwing to distraction as a toddler. The first thing Thranduil will teach Elrond when they arrive in San Diego is the Mannish wonder named Google.

 

Halloween is something else in this neighborhood. The gray shroud that normally dulls colors is lifted for a time, and the beauty of the city, usually tucked within the walls of people’s homes, finally comes into view. Everybody gets into the spirit of spooky fun, the community’s middle finger to Devil’s Night. She wishes Elrond was here so she can show this side of Detroit to him. She scolds herself for dwelling on that empty feeling that’s settled inside her since he left. He was only here for two days, and she needs to get over it and get on with her life. He was just an attractive stranger who was passing by, no more and no less, and it’s no use getting hung up on him. He’s probably forgotten about her already.

Dressed as Red Riding Hood, Nichelle amuses herself by asking a few customers who come with kids which way it is to grandma’s house. She gives them extra candy if they say they don’t talk to strangers. Twinkie comes by in a Morticia Addams costume she made herself that would make Anjelica Huston nod in appreciation.

“Trick or treat,” she says, holding open a purse with a pumpkin sewn on it. It’s stuffed with sweets.

“Trick,” answers Nicole.

“Fuck that. Gimme my candy.”

Nichelle drops a handful of mixed candies into the purse.

“You’ll be at the demonstration tomorrow, right?” asks Twinkie.

“Wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

The City Council, aside from being utterly corrupt, has way too much time on its hands. They’re trying to make it legal for landlords to refuse to lease to trans applicants seeking public housing. Twinkie’s been rightfully pissed about it for months. If it were’t for Section 8, she’d still be homeless. If that doesn’t work, Twinkie says the next step is for all the trans people in the city to camp out in front the mayor’s office. After all, it’s public property, and all the homeless and would-be homeless trans people have to stay  _somewhere_ if the city makes it legal to deny them housing.

“See ya tomorrow,” says Twinkie, and she leaves.

The stream of customers thins out, she puts on some music. She gets odd looks when the notes of a synthesizer comes from the speakers, but it’s her store, so she gets to pick the music. After they leave, she cuts loose in this relatively private moment of having the store to herself. She may or may not be thinking of Elrond as she belts out the chorus line.  _Don’t you want me, baby? Don’t you want me? Ohhh!_

Then, as if summoned by the power of The Human League, the door chimes. Her heart leaps. She hopes it’s Elrond returning to tell her that he’s forgotten something and that this time he will fuck her brains out before he goes. Hey, a girl can dream. But when the door opens, it’s not Elrond come back to make all of her erotic fantasies come true. It’s not even Thranduil come to be a pain in the ass and make her laugh. It’s just few more customers.

 

In the weeks that follow Elrond’s departure, Nichelle tries to pretend that her days aren’t filled with wondering where he is and what his doing and that her nights aren’t haunted by the things she wants to do to him. She does her best to hide her disappointment that, when she closes up Thrifty Stylez, the back door isn’t open and that he doesn’t hide among the men’s jackets. 

Twinkie notices that something’s off, and it strains Nichelle almost beyond her limits to maintain the illusion that she’s still the same no-nonsense, down-to-earth kind of girl who doesn’t keep a strand of Elrond’s hair in an empty Altoids box and most certainly doesn’t have the washcloth he used carefully preserved in the drawer at the bedside table, and she can, if she tries really hard, catch the faintest whiff of him. She has no idea how to tell Twinkie the truth, so she makes believe her world has not been turned upside down.

Then, the week before Christmas, she gets the letter. 

Her heart skips several beats when she opens her mailbox and sees an envelope addressed to Lady Nichelle Washington in the kind of handwriting she imagines people only have in Jane Austen novels. She carefully opens the envelope and pulls out the neatly folded letter inside. The paper feels silky beneath her fingers. The ink itself looks almost painted on. This was a much higher quality than ballpoint pen on inkjet printer paper. It must have cost Elrond a fortune to put this together. Her eyes soften at the elegant penmanship and the straight, even lines. Elrond must have taken such time and care to write it. The last time someone gave her a handwritten letter was Darren Smith in seventh grade, whose letter only said,  _Go out with me? Check yes or no._

She reads…

 

> _Dearest Lady Nichelle,_
> 
> _I hope my correspondence finds you in good health and that you can forgive me for the tardiness of this missive. It has taken more time than I would like for my hand to acquire an acceptable level of proficiency.  
>  _
> 
> _I had planned to communicate with you by telephone, but my pronunciation of the words in your language is barely adequate, and I am reluctant to speak when I do not know if you will find my words pleasing to your ear. Furthermore, as kind as you have demonstrated yourself to be, you would never inform me of the errors I make in my speech nor tell me that I sound like a dolt._
> 
> _If my diffidence has struck you as indifference, I apologize most sincerely, for few things would give me more pleasure than to speak with you, save perhaps to converse with you in person, and I am most keen to understand and be understood by you. If it is any consolation, in this matter, Thranduil has found much merriment at my expense._
> 
> _It may hearten you to know that Thranduil and his wife Lady Tien have been incredibly generous and helpful for acclimating me to this land. Thranduil has called upon favors owed to him by his professional acquaintances to procure identification and a small measure of financial assistance. He has also been teaching me various skills, such as Google and driving, which are critical to surviving in this realm._
> 
> _I am grateful to them both, and I intend to repay them as soon as I find gainful employment. In the meantime, I avail myself by assisting Lady Tien with various chores and errands. This leaves me with a great deal of time in which to read and study, which as you know are passions of mine._
> 
> _It is my most fervent wish to return to healing as a vocation. Lady Tien informs me that there are options for those who wish to enter the medical field, and I shall examine those options to choose which works best for me. I take the Medical College Admissions Test in the spring, and my results will have a tremendous influence on what I shall do next.  
>  _
> 
> _I hope I do not bore you by regaling you with the mundanities of my life. It has been many years since I have looked to the future with gladness, and it feels natural to share this with you. However, I shall cease doing so if these matters do not interest you.  
>  _
> 
> _I promise that I shall contact you again in a more reasonable amount of time. Should you wish to contact me, please do not hesitate to do so. My mailing address is written on the envelope in which this letter was enclosed._
> 
> _Yours truly_
> 
> _Elrond Peredhel_

She hugs the letter close, inhaling the crisp scent of the stationery as if she could draw in the sweetness of Elrond’s words. For days, she reads the letter over and over again until she knows it by heart.

 

Elrond’s finger hovers over the number pad of the cellular phone. All he must do is press ten digits, and he can hear the loveliness that is Lady Nichelle’s voice. 

He knows precisely what he shall say when Lady Nichelle answers her phone, for he has rehearsed for three hours this day. He shall greet her politely and extend his wishes for her good health. Then he shall inquire about events which have transpired since his departure and ask her opinion on matters of interest in this realm.

He pushes the first digit of Lady Nichelle’s telephone number. He knows it by heart because he has almost dialed it so many times. This time, he will not fail. This time, he will not hang up before the very first ring. 

He dials the area code, his hand trembling much less than it did the first few dozen times he attempted this. He hurries to punch in the last seven digits and braces himself as he listens to the soft buzz of her phone ringing. What will she say when she answers? Will she be cross with him–or worse, have forgotten about him entirely?

His heart fills with gladness as the line is picked up then shatters into a thousand pieces when the woman who answers is not Lady Nichelle.

“Who this?” she asks.

“Um…greetings, uh, my lady. Have I dialed the correct number for Lady Nichelle?”

“Hold on. Yo, Nicki! Telephone! She coming.”

Elrond takes deep breaths and waits. He hopes his courage will last long enough to say more than hello and goodbye. He sighs. It is foolish for him to call her. She has her own life to attend to. She doesn’t need him disrupting it at every turn. What was he thinking?

_You want to hear the sweet music of her speech. You want to hear the silvery tingle of her laughter, and you want to be the one who brings her such merriment. You want to hear her whisper how much she wants you and needs you as she lies beside you and caresses you between your thighs_

“Hello?” asks Lady Nichelle. Hours of practice, and now Elrond’s tongue refuses to work at all.

“…”

“Who is this?”

“…”

“Is anyone there?”

Elrond’s mouth feels full of marbles.  _Say something to her. Speak, damn you!_

“Lady Nichelle?” he stammers.

“Elrond? Hi! How are you?” she asks. There is excitement in her voice. Has she been as eager to speak to him as he to speak with her?

“I am fine,” he says and winces at how dull he must sound.

“Having fun in San Diego?”

“Y-yes. There is much learning and amusement to be had.”

She chuckles. The sound is warm and soft like fresh-baked bread.

“I got your letter,” she says.

“I hope its quality was up to standard. If I have made any errors, I would welcome your corrections.”

“No, no, you did great. It’s perfect.”

He sighs, relieved that he doesn’t sound completely ignorant when writing her language. 

“Your English sounds amazing,” she says.

“Thank you. Yours does as well,” he says. She laughs. Why does she laugh? What must he say to make her do it again? But not today. He has taken up enough of her time as it is.

“I should not keep you from your work,” he says.

“No, no, it’s fine,” she says. “You should probably call more often. You know, to practice.”

“How often?” he asks. He tries not to get his hopes up, but he cannot help it. Something about her encourages the more optimistic and whimsical part of his nature.

“Everyday. I mean, if you can. If you want to.”

“Oh, yes, certainly,” he says, cringing at the eagerness in his voice, “That is, if you deem it wise.”

“Practice makes perfect, right?”

Something about the way she asks that question lights his body and mind on fire with the things he could practice to elicit her perfect gasps and moans. His trousers grew quite snug.

“I, uh, I gotta go,” she says, “This time tomorrow?”

“You have my word.”

“Talk to you then. Um, bye.”

“G-Goodbye.”

After they end the call, he rushes into the shower and touches himself as he imagines all the things he would do with Nichelle had he the courage to do act upon it.

 

As Elrond slips into the arms of sleep, they carry him…

 _to the soft, warm bed of Lady Nichelle._ _There, they surrender to the pleasure of one another, finding sweet, glorious release._

_When his eyes open, he lies not beside Lady Nichelle, but Celebrían. He makes love to her, holding her close and whispering how much he misses her._

_He rolls onto his back and looks up to find Lady Nichelle straddling him, her mouth open wide in rapture. He drives faster and harder into her soft, wet heat. She rolls her hips to match him thrust for thrust. He reaches for her. Soft, warm lips press against his._

_His cry of ecstasy becomes one of horror and pain when he looks up and sees Celebrían. Not bright and vibrant as she was when he first saw her and loved her, but as she was when she was brought from the Redhorn Pass, ash-gray and emaciated, more a corpse than a living being. The loathing on her face makes his insides recoil. He tries to part from her, but she crushes his ribs with her legs, making it hard to breathe. She grows cold as death, and her walls clench him tighter than a vice. He tries to part from her, but she wraps her clammy limbs about him even more. He cannot breathe, cannot move. He wishes she would let him go, to kill him or set him free, but she doesn’t._

Upon awakening, he’s more exhausted than he was before he fell asleep. His cellular phone is ringing, bringing blessed relief from the dark turn of his dreams. The lit screen bathes the room in soft blue light. He answers, for he knows who it is without looking.

“Lady Nichelle?” he asks, cringing at how strained his voice sounds.

“Um, hi,” she says.

“Is there something amiss?”

“I…um…no, nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

Warmth spreads through him. His heart skips. If someone were to take a photograph of him right now, his face would be red as an apple.

“I am happy to be of service,” he says. Nichelle laughs. Has he said something foolish? 

“Have I said something completely ridiculous?”

He’s almost glad Gil-galad is not here to bear witness to this, for he would be laughing in his wineglass right alongside Thranduil. Elrond Half-elven, lord of Imladris, vice regent and herald of Ereinion Gil-galad, bearer of Vilya, son of Ëarendil, warrior and loremaster, is utterly flummoxed…by talking to a girl.

“No, I just– no one talks to me the way you do.”

“How do you mean?”

“Like I’m a lady.”

“Which you are.”

Her chuckle gently caresses his ear. It is a lovely sound.

“OK, um, I should hang up and let you finish, um, whatever you were doing.”

“Please don’t go,” he says, “Rest has been…elusive this night. I would have you talk to me if that is your wish.”

“About what?”

“Anything.”

She speaks of what she has been up to since his departure from Detroit, those everyday things that, little by little, draw people together. He finds himself paying attention not only to the words she speaks, but to the rise and fall of her voice as she shares details of her day-to-day life, the thoughts and feelings beneath them sparkling like gems. He listens to her talk until the first golden rays of dawn streak through his window.

 

As good as his word, Elrond calls her every day at precisely nineteen past seven every evening. At first, their chats are stumbling, awkward affairs with long pauses and uncomfortable silences as they both try to avoid broaching the topic of the undeniable…whatever it is between them. But over many days (weeks? months?), their conversations smooth into an easy flow, and it starts to feel as though she’s known him

(loved him)

all her life. They can talk from sundown to sunup about everything from the nature of other universes to what she plans to cook the next day. She’s not surprised that she hangs onto his every word, for he can make reading the phone book sound like the most interesting thing in the world. What she’s not quite ready for is how intently he listens to her. It’s almost unnerving how purposeful his silence is when she speaks, as though he is giving her every syllable the utmost attention.

Of all the things she expects to learn about him, though, she’s most taken aback by how funny he is. He has a wry, understated gallows humor that’s a shade darker than vantablack. It’s easy to miss because his delivery is so deadpan that it can make Wednesday Addams look damn near bubbly. But he has her in stitches. Every now and then, he has her laughing so hard she almost has to pee.

Once, Twinkie comes by the shop and catches the tail end of their conversation.

“Who that?” asks Twinkie.

“Nobody. He’s…just a friend,” she says.

“That big, goofy-ass grin on your face don’t say ‘just a friend’ to me.”

“We were just talking,” says Nichelle. Twinkie gives her a look that says she doesn’t buy that bullshit for a second.

“Didn’t you say you were through with men?”

“Well, technically–”

“You said you were sick and tired of men’s bullshit. You said ain’t nothing a man can do for you that’s worth it.”

“I did, but–”

“What you told me? ‘Twinkie, if I ever say I want to date a man for as long as I live, please knock me upside the damn head.’ Isn’t that what you said?”

“We’re not dating. We’re…friends.”

Twinkie arcs an eyebrow and lets it drop.

 

_Night follows the Straight Road from the moment the ship leaves Middle-earth. The stars are incredibly bright, his father’s star brightest of all against as the ship sails into the cloudless sky. Bilbo and Frodo sleep soundly against the ship’s aft, their dreams for once not troubled with nightmares. Gandalf and Lady Galadriel are at the fore, their gazes fixed upon the horizon that will bring them home and to those from whom they have been parted._

_It’s a strange feeling, not being needed anymore. Elrond does not know if he is relieved or ill at ease. There is a part of him that wonders what will become of Middle-earth and the line of Elessar, but the greater part of him, the part that endures beyond weariness and sorrow, yearns for the sight of her, her scent, her touch. It is this, not the Sea-longing that has taken so many of his people, that compels him West. His desire for her is so strong that he thinks he hears_

_(Celebrían’s)_

_(Nichelle’s)_

_her voice within the waves, singing softly._

 

> _Come-come-commala_  
>  Come to me my love-ah  
>  Underneath the sky-o  
>  And across the sea I go
> 
> _Come-come-commala_  
>  Meet me in the valley-ah  
>  Come find your sweetheart waiting  
>  On top the Tower breath a-bating
> 
> _Come-come-commala  
>  Your lover in the Tower-ah_

_The words of the song snare his spirit, pulls him toward it._ _It arouses in him a desperate need to go to its source and bury himself inside it._

 _Elrond hears the song again, more robust this time, no longer merely a song but a cry of ecstasy. It grows louder, wilder,_ _until it is shouting itself raw._ _He answers with a song of his own._

 

> _I come-come-commala_  
>  I commala-come-come  
>  Come-come I commala  
>  Commala I come-come

_(Unbeknownst to the Elves and the Wizard, the two Hobbits are neither as unaware nor as asleep as their big friends assume._

_“Uncle Bilbo,” says Frodo, “Is Lord Elrond alright? He seems very…odd.”_

_“Don’t worry yourself, lad. Elves are like that.”  
_

_“I mean…odder than usual for an Elf.”_

_“You don’t say?” asks Bilbo, opening one eye to check up–to spy, in other words–on Lord Elrond, who can be counted on to do the unexpected._ _He can fool those who know no better into thinking him like a Boffin, but make no mistake, he’s a Took of an Elf if Bilbo Baggins ever saw one._

_“What is he saying?” asks Frodo. “‘Come-come-commala’ is no kind of Elvish I’ve ever heard before. It sounds somewhat…bawdy.”  
_

_Bilbo snorts._

_“Don’t heed that high and mighty nonsense the Big Folk tell you. Wee Elves_ _are made the same way wee Hobbits are.”_

_Frodo laughs for the first time in months._

_“Uncle Bilbo, I’m surprised at you! Do you mean to tell me you lied when you said they sprung out of the ground like cabbages?”  
_

_“No, Frodo, that’s Dwarves.”  
_

_Frodo giggles, and Bilbo realizes how much he misses the sound. Wishing to prolong this simple, healing medicine, he_ _bends to Frodo’s ear and lowers his voice, “You should have heard the things Erestor said about Lord Elrond and his missus. There is not a square inch in Rivendell that has not been blessed by their, er, union.”_

_“Uncle Bilbo, he’s standing right there!”  
_

_“Should’ve kept it quiet, then.”)_

_As the song works its enchantment upon him, he is seized by a kind of madness that makes him want to leap from the ship and swim through the night toward her, into her._

 

> _Here I come-come-commala…_

Elrond awakens in darkness. For a moment, he thinks he has died and gone to whatever holding place this world has for the dead, forever parted from

(Celebrían)

(Nichelle)

his beloved. Sheer terror grips him and renders him mute until his eyes adjust to the lack of light, and he recognizes the inside of the guest bedroom in Thranduil’s house. The clock on the table next to the bed glows 3:19 AM in malevolent red. His heart is racing, his limbs restless. There will be no sleep for him tonight. 

He rises from the bed, puts on just enough clothing to be decent, and steps into the moonless night. His mind swirls with images from his dream. Not for the first time, he wonders if his subconscious is a blessing or curse from his mortal heritage. Heedless of where he is going, he walks briskly along the path cutting into the wilderness at the edge of Thranduil’s property. 

As Elrond passes into the sparse forest, rodents skitter across the ground as an owl floats down from the branches of a tree, talons outstretched, and snatches up one unfortunate mouse. He knows not why, but he senses something of great importance about witnessing it.

He keeps walking until his walk becomes a jog and his jog a full run. Faster and faster he runs, as though the tower itself were on his heels, pursuing relentlessly across time and space. He runs until there is no past and no future, no what may be or what could have been. He runs until he is only in and out, left and right.

Onward, onward, onward into the rising sun.

 

Thranduil is putting the finishing touches on his breakfast burrito when the front door opens and Elrond steps in wearing a sweat-soaked tank top and pajama pants. A coat of dust covers his bare feet.

“Where did you go?” he asks.

“Nowhere.”

Thranduil shrugs. If he doesn’t wish to speak of it, he won’t press the matter.

“I have come to a decision,” says Elrond. Thranduil waits for him to get to the point. 

“I am returning to Detroit.”

Thranduil nearly drops his burrito, but he recovers in a rather kingly fashion. “May I ask where the hell this came from?”

“For a variety of reasons, it is where I feel I must be.”

Thranduil wills his face into a mask of indifference. “And by ‘a variety of reasons,’ do you mean Nichelle?”

Elrond averts his eyes. So he was right when he thought he had observed something between the two of them. He resists the urge to rub it in. He will have ample opportunity to take the piss later.

“May I ask what has prompted such unexpected and, frankly, reckless behavior on your part?”

Elrond fidgets. He actually  _fidgets_. Thranduil does his best to hide how much fun he’s having grilling Elrond Halfelven of all people like he’s a teenager announcing that he’s taking someone to the prom.

“Lady Nichelle is mortal.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

“I do not have two thousand years to choose the right time and place.”

“Time and place for what?”

Elrond says nothing. He just stands there looking extremely uncomfortable. Elrond Halfelven, one of the wisest and most powerful Elves of the Thid Age (and likely the Second as well), who has borne the mightiest of the Three and faced armies of Orcs and Trolls sent to kill him without so much as flinching, is rendered utterly speechless by the prospect of telling a girl he likes her. Were it not for centuries of practice keeping a straight face, Thranduil would burst into laughter right then and there. To Elrond’s credit, he obviously knows how ridiculous he’s being. 

“I see,” says Thranduil, “Well, then. I suppose you’re off to Detroit. Luckily for you, I have frequent flyer miles I need to use up by the end of the month. Unfortunately, I have an assignment two weeks from now, and I need to make arrangements to leave the country then, so I will be denied the joy of seeing the look on your face at thirty thousand feet.”

The look on Elrond’s face when Thranduil tells him that almost makes up for it.

 

Elrond listens intently to the airline hostess informing passengers of safety procedures, which none of the others seem to pay a lick of attention to. Why do they ignore this potentially life-saving information? If something goes wrong, how will they know what to do?

Elrond stares out the tiny window next to him. Thranduil said that he would either love or hate flying. Thus far, it is neither as wonderful or as terrible as Thranduil reported. Perhaps he was exaggerating.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are cleared for takeoff. Please fasten your seatbelt and make sure your seats and seat trays are in the upright position. We hope you enjoy your flight and thank you for choosing Southwest Airlines.”

With a forward jolt, the jet speeds ahead, turning the landscape outside the window into a colorful blur. The vessel lifts, and the airport and the shore shrink smaller and smaller until the jet parts the clouds whereupon a thick carpet of white is all he can see of the ground. Though strapped to a chair, he is awed by the glorious freedom of floating among the clouds, high above the world and all its demands. For the first time, he sees the world as his father sees it, and he can finally understand, if not entirely forgive, why he was so rarely home.

 

“First thing you gotta know is I don’t wanna hear no loud music no time of day or night. That’s what they got earphones for. If you use something, put it back exactly where you found it. I can’t stand not knowing where my stuff at. Clean up after yourself. I might be blind but that don’t mean I can’t tell when you leave your mess all over the place. You can have company late as you want, but when the bus start running again they ass go home. I don’t want no more roommates. Rent due on the first of the month. Not the second, not the fifth, not the tenth. Trash man come on Tuesday. And that’s it. You got any questions?”

“No, madam. You have been very thorough,” says Agnes’ new roommate.

“Good.  I don’t like spelling it out for people. How you say your name again? Elroy?”

“Elrond, madam.”

He sounds white, but his tone lacks that subtle condescension that white men have when they talk to her (talk  _at_  her, to be honest). Agnes still can’t place that accent of his. Sometimes she thinks it’s English; sometimes she thinks it’s Australian. There’s a lyrical quality to it that she can’t name, and she doesn’t know quite what to make of it.

When she asks him where he’s from, there is the slightest hesitation as he says, “Here and there.”

The accent isn’t the only thing that tells her there’s more to him than he’s letting on. Usually, she can tell someone’s in the house with her by the way the floorboards creak beneath their steps, but they are utterly silent when Elroy–no, Elrond–is there. She runs smack into him twice during the tour of the house. He’s tall and solid as a man should be, and his hands are firm but gentle when he steadies her and places her cane in her hand. Oooh, chile, if she were thirty years younger…

 

Dappled sunlight spills onto a woman and her book as a light breeze floats through the green of Belle Isle Park, carrying spring pollen that will create bright summer blossoms. Nichelle reclines against a tree pouring over her copy of  _The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah_. Engrossed in the story of Roland Deschain and his ka-tet, she almost doesn’t notice that her phone is vibrating. She rarely gets a chance to read without interruption, so she has a mind to let it go to voicemail, but when she sees the name flashing on the screen, she plops the book face-down on the grass and picks up.

“Elrond!” she says, wincing at how much she sounds like a teenager squealing at the sight of some boy band.

“Er, hi,” she says, hoping she sounds more like a grown woman.

“Good afternoon,” he says, “Am I– is this the wrong time?”

“No, I’m off today. I was just catching up on some reading.”

“I see. Forgive me. I should call you later.”

“No, don’t. I– I’m glad you called. Um, what’s up?”

“I have returned to Detroit.”

Nichelle’s heart has never flipped before, but as soon as the words come out of Elrond’s mouth, she understands the feeling. She smiles so wide her face hurts.

“How long you in town?”

“For a time. If such is amenable to you.”

Nichelle smiles again. God, she loves how he talks. She wonders what it would sound like to hear him read Shakespeare’s sonnets. Her panties would probably melt from the unadulterated sexiness. 

“Are you working this evening?”

“No, I’m off tonight.”

“Right. Of course. You just said that.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Wrong? No. I, uh, you see, um, Thranduil says that it is customary for, um, when a male wishes to, er, spend time with a lady, it is customary for him to suggest an activity. Is this correct?”

“Um, most of the time. It’s not a rule or anything. Anybody can ask anybody out. Why? Are you asking me out?” 

“…”

What does he mean by–oh.  _Oh._  She can’t believe it. Elrond’s asking her out on a date. Her mind reels as it sinks in.  _He’s asking me out! Elrond’s asking me out! Me! Say yes! Say yes no matter what it is! Say yes even if it’s counting grains of sand on the beach._

“Oh. Uh, what kind of thing do you have in mind?”

“Er, right. Are you familiar with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History?”

“I’ve been there once or twice.”

“The museum’s website indicates that it will be open to the public until seven o’clock this evening. I have also become aware that the museum has procured antiquities from West Africa. I intend to go, for it seems quite interesting and, um, educational. Would you care to accompany me?”

“Yes,” she whispers, surprised she can make a sound.

“Yes?” asks Elrond, his voice tinged with disbelief.

“Yeah, I wanna come. With you. I would enjoy that. What time?”

“Is it acceptable for me to be at your home at four o’clock? After we visit the museum, we can, perhaps, share a meal?”

“Yeah, four’s great. I’ll be ready.”

“Excellent. I should hang up now. I must prepare.”

“Right, yeah. I gotta get going too.”

“Until we meet.”

“OK, ‘til then.”

“Goodbye, Lady Nichelle.”

“Bye.”

She hangs up. If she feels any lighter, she’s going to start floating. She speed-dials Twinkie and gushes all about it.

“Whatever happened to Misandry 4 Lyfe?” asks Twinkie.

“I said ‘with rare exception.’ He’s the rare exception. I swear to God, Twinkie, he comes from the pages of a book.”

“Bitch, you so damn thirsty,” says Twinkie. Nichelle laughs because it’s true.

“I know you ain’t talking. Remember Mr. Hershey?”

Hershey was not the guy’s name. Twinkie called him that because he was dark-skinned and his abs were so ripped they look like a Hershey bar.

“Too bad he couldn’t fuck worth a damn,” quips Twinkie. “Ruined all my fantasies.”

 

It’s a good thing Nichelle only needs to get her brows done. Peaches’ salon is packed, and it’s only by the miracle of a last-minute cancellation that she gets squeezed in at one-thirty. She’s in and out by two, so she makes sure to give Peaches a good tip.

At the loft, she digs through her closet to find that cute shit she wore how many years ago on a date with  _that_  asshole. She lays it on the bed next to her options for undergarments (control-top granny panties or the frilly lace thing?). She rummages under her bed and fishes out those patent leather Mary Janes that make her look cute without killing her feet (She still puts a pair of flats in her purse, though). She feels accomplished when she sees that everything she picks comes right off the racks at Thrifty Stylez.

She pulls on her bra and panties and becomes a new woman when she steps into the short white dress with the blue trim. She only puts on light makeup to add a bit more color to her getup. The woman gazing back at her from the mirror is elegant, mysterious, sensual–more like her namesake than she’s ever felt. 

She looks at herself and says, “I am so getting laid tonight.”

She’s ten minutes behind when she finally leaves the loft. The clear and sunny weather holds as if whoever’s in charge up in the sky has decided to be nice to her. She hopes their good mood lasts.

When she finally makes it to the museum, she’s fifteen minutes late. Elrond paces the museum’s courtyard as though he expected her not to come. Then he looks up and sees her, and his face lights up like Christmas. She walks toward him, delighting in the awestruck expression on his face as she nears him.

“You look…you shine like a star,” he says. He gently places his hand into the crook of his arm and doesn’t take his eyes off her for a second. Yep, definitely getting laid.

“Thank you,” he says.

“For what?”

“Everything. For being here. For your lovely dress. For…you know, I feel like a whole person again.”

“Oh. Uh, thanks. It’s been a while since someone asked me somewhere nice enough to wear it.”

“’Tis a pity that is so.”

Elrond in a museum is like a kid in a candy store. He looks at each exhibit from every angle, even reading the little placards next to each one, every so often saying, “Fascinating” in a way that would make Mr. Spock quirk an eyebrow.

He spends a lot of time among the West African art. He points out things about the craftsmanship that even people at the museum don’t notice: like how a particular wood carving creates texture while preserving the grain of the wood, accentuating its natural beauty rather than overpowering it; the mastery it requires to make such intricate patterns in ivory; the sophistication beneath the seeming simplicity of Benin metalworks.

“They are so like how Ada–I mean, Maglor–described the works of Nerdanel. I believe she would have greatly enjoyed seeing them.”

As they enter the section of the exhibit about slavery, she wants to turn tail and run. In no other place have they felt so different, so incomprehensibly alien to one another. Elrond’s ancestors were the greatest of Elves and Men, and he carries the blood of kings in his veins. Her ancestors, whoever they were, labored from birth to death as little more than livestock. He can probably trace his lineage as far back as the very first Elves while hers is lost to history and memory. Intellectually, she knows she has nothing to be ashamed of, but she cannot help worrying that he will think less of her.

He pauses at a pair of rusted manacles encased in glass. 

“There is more malevolence in these than in a Morgul blade,” he whispers, “Many people have suffered in their grasp.”

He looks at the other objects in complete silence. Though his face is a blank mask, Nichelle senses disgust and horror as he passes by the slave collar, the branding iron, and the bit.

Elrond shakes his head, “Not even an Orc would be so cruel.”

When they leave the exhibits on slavery, he seems embarrassed.

“Forgive me. I should not have brought you this way,” he says, “It was not my intention to cause you pain or shame.”

“No, it’s fine. You had to find out sooner or later.”

“Nevertheless, it is you who bear the discomfort of it.”

“It’s OK; I’m used to it.”

“That you say as much is a testament to the resilience of your people. I do wish that circumstances had not made it necessary.”

They explore the museum until the intercom announces that the doors are about to close. As Elrond ushers her out the door, he seems thoughtful.

“The history of your people is extraordinary,” he says, “You have achieved so much in so little time despite such great adversity.”

Four hundred years, and white folks still can’t believe African Americans have a culture and a history worth studying, but it only takes Elrond an hour and a half to grasp that what Black folks have survived in this country is remarkable. Nichelle laughs at the irony of an immortal alien from an alternate Earth getting what people who are from here don’t.

“Have I said something ridiculous?” he asks.

“No, you said something very right. It’s the people from this world who cannot seem to say it.”

She chuckles at the puzzled look he give her. He opens his mouth to say something else, but apparently thinks better of it.

Instead, he says, “It is my understanding that you enjoy Italian cuisine.”

“Yes.”

“Good. There is a restaurant that has such fare not far from here.”

“Are you planning on spoiling me rotten, Elrond Halfelven?”

“Without a doubt, my lady.”

“I’d love to. Where’d you park?”

“I did not drive.”

“Don’t tell me you took the bus.”

“I did not take the bus either.”

“Then how’d you get here?”

“I walked.”

“You  _walked_?”

“Of course. I own no vehicle.”

“You  _walked_?”

“Yes.”

“From where?”

“From my current lodgings.”

“How long did it take you to get here?”

“Only an hour or so. I passed by the Italian restaurant on my way here less than ten minutes that way,” he says, pointing toward downtown.

Nichelle gawks at him. People in this city don’t even want to drive from one end of town to the other, and they’d complain about how far they parked, but Elrond  _walked_. The way he just does it without saying a word to brag or complain reminds her of something Nana used to say.

_Nana’s house always smells like fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. Even now, when arthritis makes it more and more difficult, she has a batch in the oven waiting for Nichelle whenever Ma brings her over to visit. Nana’s the only person in her family she’s told about her sexuality. Nana doesn’t judge, just nods in that way that says she’s known all along._

_“Listen to me, Nicki,” says Nana as the cookies bake in the oven. “When you’re seeing somebody–it don’t matter if they’re a man or woman or whatever–if you wanna know if they’re a keeper, look at what they do. If they give you their last dollar or their last bite of food, that’s somebody you should try to hold on to. If they go outta their way for you and don’t complain about it, that’s the kinda one you wanna settle down with. I don’t care how much they say they love you and can’t live without you. If they ain’t sacrifice nothing for you, they ain’t in it for you; they just in it for what they get from you. So you be careful.”  
_

_Even now, years after Nana passes, she’s been right every time. She learns that lesson for sure when she gets stuck paying a year-long lease for an overpriced downtown apartment because Rachel broke up with her a month and a half after Nichelle signs her name on the dotted line._

“You may use your vehicle if you prefer,” says Elrond.

“No, um, walking is fine.”

They don’t hurry to the restaurant. They walk silently. It’s strange, yet at the same time amazing, that Nichelle feels no need to fill the silence with sound, for it’s comforting in the way that usually only happens when people have been together for many years. Nana and Papa had that, at least before Papa died. Come to think of it, Elrond does remind her a lot of Papa. He’s got Papa’s eyes that have seen so much but are still able to show so much kindness (but not weakness; Papa could be  _scary_  when he got mad, and that only happened when somebody tried to hurt his family).

Mario’s Trattoria is an upscale sort of place with a homey, old-world charm she’s come to associate with real Italian restaurants. The waiter, Nicolo, leads them to one of the few empty tables left. Water and a bread basket are promptly placed on their table. Their hands brush against each other as they both reach for the bread at the same time. Their eyes meet, and she gasps at what she sees in his: sheer, raw desire. Fortunately, the waiter comes to take their order before she can drag him to the restroom for a quickie.

While they wait for their food, she asks him about his plans while he’s in Detroit to take her mind off…his thing. Things. Take her mind off  _things_.

“The first thing to attend to is to procure employment. Google says that there is a position at a local emergency room for…”

Nichelle doesn’t hear the rest of what he says, for she’s too busy watching the sensuous way his lips move and the subtle movements of his hands. Her mind drifts to how much she would enjoy his hands and his mouth upon her.

“…in five or six years, I should be more or less where I wish to be. Are you well, my lady?”

“Yes!” she says, a bit too forcefully. She softens her voice and continues, “I’m just hungry, that’s all.”

Their order comes: angel hair in tomato sauce for her, fettuccine alfredo for him. Elrond waits for her to put her fork into plate before spinning his fork into his. He eats his first forkful, eyebrows raising as he makes a small hum of satisfaction. He licks a dab of sauce from his lips, and Nichelle tries not to think about other things he can do with his tongue.

“Do they have pasta in Middle-earth?” she asks.

“Yes, but not of this sort,” he says, “The kind I am familiar with is steeped in broth with vegetables. It was very popular in Gondor during the Second Age. There is, I believe, a similar product common in supermarkets.”

“Ramen noodles?”

“Yes, that is what they are called.”

Despite Elrond eating like he graduated with top honors from finishing school, he makes short work of his fettuccine alfredo. He’s already cleared half his plate as she slides another forkful of angel hair into her mouth, imagining other long things filling her mouth. Elrond clears his throat and downs his glass of water in three gulps.

“You OK?” she asks.

“I am well,” he says, his eyes glued to his butter knife as he picks up a piece of bread and spreads butter across it.

After dinner, Elrond walks her back to her car, and opens the door for her.

“Want me to give you a lift home?” she asks. Elrond shakes his head.

“I…cannot,” he says.

Oh, great. This is the part where he goes  _I had a lovely time but I just don’t see me and you becoming anything more than friends_. 

“Please do not misunderstand. I would be delighted to have more time to spend in your company, but although your intentions are nothing but noble, I cannot say with certainty that mine would be entirely selfless, and I would never forgive myself if I take advantage of your kindness and generosity.”

She wants to say  _Go ahead; take advantage as much as you like_. But does she want him to fuck her silly all night only to hate himself afterward?

“OK,” she says, “I understand.”

He smiles. He steps toward her with a look of calm resolve, and, for a moment, she thinks he’s going to kiss her. Instead, he takes her hand in his, brings it to his lips, shuts his eyes (He’s got lashes Elizabeth Taylor would envy) and kisses it. There’s a warmth and softness where his lips touched her hand. Nichelle doesn’t know why–Is it the hint of barely restrained lust beneath such a decorous gesture? Is it because she’s horny, and it’s been a while?–but it sends delicious tremors throughout her body.

Elrond gently ushers her into her car and shuts the door for her too. She waves at him, and he gives her a shy wave back. She puts the key into the ignition and starts the car. She turns to where he stood, punching the button to bring the window down, but he has already disappeared into the shadows of the parking lot. As she shifts the car into drive, she can still feel him watching over her.

 

Elrond watches the glowing tail light of Nichelle’s automobile as she exits the parking area and turns onto the street. Her vehicle disappears behind a large building, and he wonders if he erred by declining to join her. Her invitation was clear, that much he knows, for Lady Nichelle is no blushing maiden completely ignorant of the workings of the body, a fact for which he is immeasurably grateful. Celebrían had been a virgin when they had first shared a bed, and he had been so consumed with fear of hurting her that he had not been able to fully enjoy the experience. It had taken Celebrían becoming extremely blunt about the matter to make him aware that he had not been subjecting her to torture each time he made love to her, but he had not been truly convinced until a pair of bawling twins came out of her womb.

Perhaps he should have gone with Nichelle. At the very least, he would have had more time to slide his gaze along the curve of her neck and get lost in the depths of her dark eyes and the smooth, dewy glow of her skin…

He could kick himself for his misstep in the museum. If Elros were here, he would do the kicking for him, and with great zeal, which is no less than he deserves. What was he thinking, roaming the part of the museum that brings such terrible shame to her? So lost was he in his own curiosity that he failed to see she was uncomfortable. Why didn’t he reassure her that the shame of slavery belongs to the enslavers and not the enslaved? If Thranduil were here, he would tell Elrond that he is doing an excellent job of making the woman he’s courting embarrassed about her heritage.

He pauses at that thought. Are they courting now? Among the Eldar, this would be courting, but the customs of this world are as different from Middle-earth’s as night and day. Spending hours with a lady unchaperoned may be nothing more than a pleasant diversion here and not the declaration of intent that it would be among the Eldar. He must know the answer to this before his feelings for her grow stronger than they already are.

 _Too late_ , mocks a voice from within.

 

Throughout the spring, they spend most of their free time in each other’s company.

However, when Elrond finds a job–

_”A job? How?”_

_“I walked into the building and asked if I could work.”  
_

_“You didn’t have to apply online or anything like that?”_

_“No. I spoke with the head nurse at the emergency room. I believe her exact words were, ‘Finally, someone who gets I don’t have time to check my e-mail all day.’”_

_“When do you start?”_

_“Monday night, though I shall be working a…what do you call it…a swing shift.”_

their time together becomes less frequent and more precious. It is during this time that he meets Lady Andrea, or Twinkie, as she prefers to be called, who has been Lady Nichelle’s best friend since university. Lady Twinkie has a bold frankness that is both shocking and refreshing. With a grisly description of what will happen to his private parts should he hurt Nichelle, she demonstrates her fierce loyalty to her friend, and he knows not whether to be impressed or terrified by that. Possibly both.

Each time Elrond bids Lady Nichelle goodbye, he kisses her on the hand, for if he kisses her on the lips, the flames of lust will burn with such ardor that he will incinerate on the spot. 

In mid-summer, as they watch the fireworks for the Fourth of July celebration, Elrond risks giving Lady Nichelle a peck on the cheek. They want more, so much more, but if they attempt it, they will rocket into the air and pop in a million sparks of light. Actually, that does not sound so bad. From then on, they greet and say goodbye with a kiss upon the cheek. Although, in Nichelle’s case, it’s a kiss on the neck, for she is much shorter than Elrond, and she can only reach that high even when she stands on her toes. Nichelle notices that sometimes he bends or dips ever so slightly so that she can reach him, and when he does so, she may or may not linger just a tad.

They finally kiss on the lips as they walk along the patch of green near the riverfront. A sudden wind blows from the water, whipping Elrond’s hair so hard that the strip of leather holding it blows off, freeing the long, black strands. As Elrond brushes his hair out of his face, she sees him in a rare unguarded moment, and Nichelle is shocked at the naked desire she sees in storm-gray eyes the same color as the gathering clouds. Never has she seen him so wild, so much a force of nature, so like himself.

Somehow she winds up on the ground beneath him, clutching him in her arms as he plunges his tongue into her mouth, his thigh pressed between her legs. Then, they’re not in the park anymore, not even in Detroit anymore, but lying in the grass next to a stream. They’re both naked, her nipples pebbling beneath his gently grazing fingers and the chill of the autumn air. How she needs this! She turns him onto his back and delights in how his eyes are fixed on where they are to be joined. He reaches for her, so she brings his hand to her breast. She wants to make love to him, and she wants to give him a baby.

What? No! She doesn’t want to get pregnant. She’s nowhere near ready to get pregnant. She doesn’t want to have anybody’s baby. She shoves Elrond none too gently and sits up. The scene by the stream disappears, and she’s back to her real life again. For a second, she wonders if she has imagined the whole thing, but as Elrond zips up and buckles his belt, the grass stains on the knees of his white pants tell her she did not. He doesn’t say a word about it, not to ask her what happened, not to demand an answer for how suddenly she went from hot to cold, not to complain about mixed signals or whine about blue balls. He just helps her to her feet, puts his arm around her, and walks with her. 

From that day on, she makes sure she has plenty of condoms in her purse.

 

In the weeks following their moment by the riverside (which, Elrond is amused to learn, is a crime in this world. A crime! As if the embarrassment of being caught would not be punishment enough), they make ample time in private to learn the secrets of each other’s bodies. He delights in watching her touch herself, and it stirs his loins to see her shudder with excitement as he applies what he learns when he touches her. She is initially ashamed of the musky tanginess between her legs, but repeated demonstrations of his eagerness to kiss and lick her there dispel her anxiety about the matter. Whomever is responsible for placing such notions in her mind, he knows not, but they must live a woefully bereft existence to be repulsed by her. 

Aside from the practical issue of preventing pregnancy, the condoms Nichelle insists upon using have the unexpected benefit of prolonging the pleasure of being inside her. They often stay up half the night (or day, depending on each of their schedules) making love, or fucking, to use the lexicon of Nichelle’s mother tongue. Afterward, they may talk for a while, or simply touch and hold one another. Nichelle has an endearing, childlike fascination with his foreskin that prompts her to tug on it or pinch it between her fingers, tickling him as she brushes against his glans. 

She is wondrously uninhibited about expressing her desire for him, with words and hands, lips and tongue, and her insatiable appetite demands the utmost of his skill and stamina. To want and be wanted with such ardor awakens a part of himself that he once thought had died when Celebrían sailed West. But, lo! It was not dead, merely sleeping behind the dam he erected there. Once released, the powerful current of his  _îr_ rushes forth and brings the water of life and renewal to what was once barren.

He is astonished by how right it feels to be with her, as though something missing has finally fallen into place.


	4. Chapter 4

> _No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue  
>  I could not foresee this thing happening to you  
> If I look hard enough into the setting sun  
> My love will laugh with me before the morning comes  
> _ _I see a red door and I want it painted black  
> _ _No colors any more, I want them to turn black_ –The Rolling Stones, “Paint It Black 

Thranduil comes back to Detroit almost a year to the day later from the date he first came. The streets are as grimy as ever, and the sky as perpetually overcast as he remembers. There’s the same caginess among the people who walk the streets, for Devil’s Night is only days away. He occasionally catches a glimpse of a storefront that has the look of celebrating Halloween early, a colorful contrast to the shades of gray that dominate the urban palette.

When his feet carry him to Thrifty Stylez, Lady Nichelle looks up from the pages of  _The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower_  and smiles. Doing so gives her a radiance that reminds him of Lady Galadriel. She must be in love. Either that, or pregnant.

“Hey, you,” she says in that sharp yet affectionate tone that she must have perfected several lifetimes ago. For a mortal, she is so like–

“Hey, yourself.”

“What you doing back in Detroit?”

“I’m on assignment,” he says. He doesn’t tell her he’s here to kill someone. Several someones. Even if he weren’t bound by oath, he wouldn’t say a word of it. Bringing talk of death to Lady Nichelle’s place of business strikes him as a kind of blasphemy.

“Oh yeah? Doing what?”

“That’s…classified.”

Lady Nichelle gives him a look that tells him she’s not fooled for a second, but she wisely doesn’t say anything. He changes the subject.

“You seem to be happy. Are you and Lord Elrond…involved?”

“That’s none of your damn business.”

“So that’s a yes, then? Oh, it is! My God, what is that even like?”

She turns back to her novel–pretends to, anyway. He probably shouldn’t push, but this bit of news is far too juicy to pass up.

“What does he  _do_? Does he narrate what he does like he’s Richard Attenborough on Wild Kingdom?”

“Shut up,” she says, turning a page.

“He probably does. ‘And the male inserts his penis into the female’s vagina, and mating commences.’”

“Ew!” she yells. She picks up her purse and swings it straight into his arm. He blocks the next swing. It lands solidly on his forearm.

“I don’t wanna hear you say anything else about anybody’s genitals ever!”

“Alright, alright,” he says, wincing as he moves his arm. “That really hurt. What do you put in that thing, rocks?”

“No. Bricks.”

“Seriously, though: does he come in Quenya?“

She hurls the purse at him. He ducks and smiles at her growl of frustration.

The front door chimes as Elrond enters wearing…scrubs? What has he been up to?

“ _Mae govannen_ , Lord Elrond,” he says.

“ _Mae govannen_ , Thranduil.”

“Are your ears burning?” he asks, glancing at Nichelle who pointedly scratches her nose with her middle finger.

 

With Thranduil back in the city, he and Nichelle quickly fall into a pattern where he becomes her big brother and she his adopted sister. In other words, he teases and provokes her mercilessly every chance he gets in his own regal, Elvish fashion. Sometimes she wonders if he’s making up for those millennia he lived without a kid sister to pick on. He’s  _so bad_!

One of his favorite things to do is sneak up behind her and go, “Boo!” then grin at her scream and dodge when she throws whatever object is closest to her hand. This makes him laugh in that smooth, rich voice of his, and he quips, “Your aim is terrible. Are you certain you are not a Dwarf?”

But sometimes, when he and Elrond talk among themselves, she catches snippets of their conversation, and she remembers that before he came to this world, he was a king who weighed important matters of state on a daily basis.

“…dark presence growing in this city. Do you not feel it?”

“Yes, but the Shadow conceals much from me.”

“What do you plan to do about it?”

“Learn as much as I am able.”

“And then what?”

“Thranduil, I am not the Lord of Imladris anymore. I cannot simply…”

She lets them argue it out. It stings that Elrond never shared this with her, though. Maybe after things settle down, she’ll have the We Are A Couple We Need To Communicate talk. There’ll be plenty of time for that after everything with Devil’s Night wraps up.

 

The two nights before Devil’s Night, Nichelle surprises Elrond by coming to the emergency room while he sips tea from a styrofoam cup in the break room at work. The harsh light of the emergency room softens around her, casting her in an aura that is so like the radiance of Lady Galadriel that it stuns him for a moment.

She crooks her finger in a come hither gesture, so he followers her out of the break room and into the hallway, where she disappears into a restroom. He enters behind her to find her standing in the bathroom with eyes lidded, her lips beckoning to be kissed. The lock clicks as he obliges.

She gently pushes him toward the wall and guides his hands to the metal rail pressing against the small of his back. Then, without her eyes leaving his, she kneels on the floor before him. Is she? She cannot be–

“I wanna give you a happy anniversary present,” she says.

“Hm?” he asks, no longer able to think coherently with her on her knees in front of him with that look of anticipation on her face. She likely has no earthly idea how enticing she is when she looks at him so.

“It’s been a year since you came. From Middle-earth?”

He nods, for that is all he can manage right now. She chuckles.

“Be a good boy and keep your hands right there,” she whispers. He obeys and grips the cool rail firmly, partly because he wants what she’s offering but mostly because he can deny her nothing.

Her slender brown fingers gently unlace waistband of his trousers and tug them down along with his briefs. Then she’s touching him, and she feels so, so good. Her tongue gently strokes his hardening length, and his grip on the rail is all that’s holding him up. He wants to touch her, to draw her closer to himself, but she may stop this if he moves, and if she stops, he may very well die. But he may also die if she keeps going.

He lets out a jagged moan, and there is a moment where he feels raw and exposed. Deep joy and gratitude flow out of him and toward her, the one who has bestowed upon him such a beautiful gift.

“Did you enjoy your anniversary present?”

“Indeed,” he says, bending forward to kiss her. He will return the favor on the morrow, perhaps to help her sleep, or to wake, depending on when he is scheduled to work.

 

Nicki doesn’t call her after the store closes like she normally does, so Twinkie calls her. Nicki doesn’t pick up

(please let it be she forgot her phone)

so she calls back at eight o’ clock. The phone rings eight times and goes to voicemail. 

(please let it be she forgot her phone)

She calls again half an hour later, no answer. And again at eight forty-five, still no answer.

(oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god)

She doesn’t want to bother Elrond, not while he’s working late tonight, but if Nicki’s not picking up….

“Um, Nicki with you?”

“She is not. Has something happened?”

“I…I don’t know,” she says, and she’s already choking up.

“Perhaps she has forgotten her cellular phone,” he says, and to hear Elrond say the words in that deep, calm voice–so unlike how frayed she must sound right now–almost makes her believe it.

“Maybe I should be looking for her,” she says. She’s a hair’s breadth from crying, and she feels like such a child. Nicki might need her, and she has to be strong for that, but all she can manage is holding back sobs.

“You can be of no assistance to her if you endanger yourself,” he says, and it’s true. But she still wants to do something, anything but sit and wait and hope for the best.

“You’re right,” she says, wiping the tears that leak from her eyes.

“Lady Twinkie, I know it is your instinct to seek Lady Nichelle,” he says, and she almost giggles that he can still be so proper while the city is on fire and her best friend is missing, “but you must not place yourself in harm’s way.”

“We gotta do something. I can’t just sit here when she’s out there and might need me.”

“Hear me, Lady Twinkie. I have a second break in thirty minutes. I will seek her then. I will do so again when my shift ends at eleven o’ clock. I will know what has become of her by the end of this night.”

“And if she’s alright yell at her for me.”

“I shall make my displeasure known.”

“Please find her,” she whispers.

 

There’s something about Lucky–his real name is Elroy or Elwood or something like that–that makes Dr. David Cohen wonder. Not in a bad way, not necessarily, just…curious.

Like the fact that since he joined the team a few months ago, no one has died in the ER or the ICU. They may be DOA, but every single person who has come to the ER and been placed in ICU. recovers well enough to transfer to a room or go home. Heart attacks, strokes, gunshot wounds, ODs, “accidents” that were really suicide attempts, none of them died. Not one.

More than a few were close to gone, like that kid who had a fever of a hundred and six because his parents were one of those anti-vaxx morons who were more worried about their kid being autistic than their kid being dead. Kid had a bad case of the measles, and everything pointed to him not making it, but he lived to finally get vaccinated. That one was close, but there were others who were even closer to the brink who came back because Lucky was there.

It’s not that Lucky actually  _does_  anything weird. He speaks the same medical jargon as everyone else in the ER like he’s known it from the cradle. Despite being the rookie of the ER, he seems comfortable around bodies in all states less than ideal, but David chalks that up to Lucky’s stint in the military.

Though Lucky regularly works double shifts, he never seems the least bit tired, but maybe Lucky just takes good care of himself. He certainly looks it. Models would do a lot to themselves to look like him. He has the nagging suspicion that more than a few people who come to the ER stick around in the world of the living just to look at Lucky.

Every now and then, too, he hears Lucky say the name of a patient when David’s sure he hasn’t told him. But who knows? Maybe Lucky got the name from one of the nurses or something.

Once in a while, a patient who comes to the ER is discharged from the hospital and crosses paths with Lucky, and David sees that patient give Lucky a smile that says, “Don’t worry. I will keep your secret.” What’s that about? For all David knows, he may have shared something embarrassing like wetting the bed until he was ten years old. But still, it’s odd.

Then there are the times when he’s passing by the ICU, and Lucky is with a patient David’s sure won’t make it, and he’s sure he hears Lucky speaking in a foreign language that’s definitely not English, Spanish, Latin, Greek, or Yiddish. But when Lucky hears it, the patient comes through. And does Lucky glow as if from inside when he does this, or is it a trick of the light?

Tonight is the busiest night of the year for the ER, and Lucky’s been super-helpful for getting the worst of the cases stable. He really needs to have a serious talk with Lucky about med school. It’s time for Lucky’s second break, so maybe–

The thought skids to a halt as the doors of the ICU open with a loud, painful bang, and Lucky makes a beeline for the exit. He watches Lucky leave with a sinking feeling in his gut, and David wonders if maybe Lucky’s luck has run out.

 

It takes Elrond a little over twenty minutes to run the five and a half miles from the emergency room to Thrifty Stylez. He can run faster, and has done so in full armor while carrying the saddle of his fallen horse, but he has no wish to make matters worse by trampling some poor pedestrian or being struck by a motorist paying more attention to their cellular phone than the crosswalk.

He fears the worst as soon as he turns from East Lafayette and sees the flashing red lights of fire trucks and an ambulance parked in front of the charred remains of Thrifty Stylez. He sprints the last few blocks, leaping over benches, chained bicycles, and hunched-over vagrants bent over shopping carts.  He ignores the thieves stripping a car to its tires and steering wheels, pays no heed to a scrawny teenaged girl who bumps into a well-dressed man and walks away with a leather wallet. He runs right past a handful of shouting men swinging pipes and baseball bats into cars parked on the street. His mind is occupied by a singular wish that so consumes him that all other thoughts are rendered mute.

_This cannot happen, not again!_

A gurney is wheeled out the store. Bile rises toward his throat, and it takes all his self-discipline not to vomit. Strapped to its surface, her face covered by an oxygen mask, is 

(Celebrían)

Nichelle. Ugly purple splotches mar the smooth, brown skin. The fingers of the delicate hands are bent and misshapen. As he draws near, he discerns the bruised lip, swollen eyelid, and and small, bloody hole on her forehead. On one arm, a patch of skin has burned away, revealing the pink flesh beneath.

 _Please be a nightmare_ , he begs whatever power governs this world.  _Please be a nightmare. I do not think I can bear it if I cannot wake up from this._

Most of her hair has been burnt nigh to the scalp. The sight of her vanished hair, which she has taken such care to nurture and grow, makes the horror of the sight too real. It steals the breath from his body, and it takes all his self-mastery to remain standing. His mind cries out to hers, but she is severed from him by a yawning chasm, and he can sense but cannot reach her.

Has he somehow brought this upon her? Has he incurred the wrath of the Valar? Is this Eru Ilúvatar’s punishment?  _Of course it is,_  whispers a bitter voice from deep within,  _Did not the righteous and the wicked of Númenor drown in the sea?_

Why did Ilúvatar make his Children so alike in form an nature only to sever them forever in fate? Why make it possible for the Firstborn and Second Children to speak, to want and to love one another if only for mortals to be snuffed out like candles, leaving behind nothing but pain and memory until the end of Arda? How can He be so cruel? Then, in that moment, for but a fraction of a fraction of a second, he hates everything and wants all of Ëa to be swallowed into the Void.

_Somewhere far away, but closer than one would think, a malevolent presence senses this tiny pinprick of a moment when an old enemy’s vigilance slips, and the doorway of evil creaks open just a bit, no wider than a hair’s breadth; and it is glad._

 

Thranduil arrives at the ICU ten minutes after he receives Elrond’s text message: Nichelle. Intensive Care Unit. Henry Ford Hospital.

He scans the room for Nichelle’s bed and glances at a Black lady in a blond wig standing next to a bed weeping. He flinches at the unrecognizable mound of bandages, slings, and tubes that nevertheless have  _Washington, N_. on the chart affixed to the end of the bed.

He almost turns to leave so that the lady–What did Nichelle call her? Some kind of snack? Twizzler? No, no. Twinkie!—-can be alone with Lady Nichelle, but Lord Elrond enters the ICU. He looks like hell. There is no other way to describe it. Though there is nothing outwardly wrong with him, he walks as if disconnected from his own body, a kind of flesh puppet barely tethered to the strings of his mind and spirit.

Elrond delivers the news in an eerie, robotic voice with no inflection whatsoever. It’s unnerving to hear that dead-inside monotone come from the mouth of a living being. The medical jargon is beyond his understanding, but his blood freezes at words like “second- and third-degree burns,” “massive blood loss,” “damaged lungs,” “comatose,” “second- and third-degree burns,” “mandibular fracture,” and “gunshot wound to the head.”

“How can you just say that shit like that? Don’t you feel anything?” asks the lady sitting next to Nichelle’s bed, the rebuke none-too-subtle.

_(I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Dave.)_

If Thranduil speaks of it, it may disgust Lady Twinkie to know that Elrond likely doesn’t feel anything. Thranduil believes he can understand why. Some griefs are too great to bear all at once, and it is only detachment from it that allows one not to succumb to them. Furthermore, he has spent millennia commanding armies under the most desperate conditions imaginable, and what doesn’t help in such times is a leader who panics or allows himself to despair. As someone who’s depended upon by a great number of people, he will never allow himself to falter in front of others no matter how personal or devastating a situation may be. His nature and upbringing demand that he take responsibility for others’ well-being, and for this many have relied upon Elrond to remain calm and rational in a crisis. No matter how much he may need or want to, he would never allow personal matters to interfere with the situation at hand.

“You are tired. You should go home and rest,” says Elrond in that creepy voice without inflection.

_(Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it.)_

“I ain’t going no goddamn where,” says Twinkie.

“You must go home and rest,” says Elrond.

_(My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it.)_

“Why are you talking like that? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

_(I can feel it. I can feel it. I’m a… fraid.)_

“Please,” he says. Nay, he doesn’t say it so much as drag it out of the broken shards of his psyche. This seems to reach Twinkie, for she finally looks at Elrond for real, and she must see the same hollow gaze Thranduil sees, for she shrinks back just a tad (and this is far more stalwart than even some Dúnedain have been in Elrond’s presence) and collects her bright pink leather purse.

“I’m coming back, Nicki,” she says, “Your ass better be here.”

Her heels click-clack on the polished linoleum as she exits. Thranduil doesn’t tell her how dim Nichelle’s  _fae_  has grown, how close she is to death. She already looks so small and frail, so unlike the vibrant presence she was less than a day ago. The ventilator hisses as it pumps air into Nichelle’s damaged lungs. There is small comfort in the soft  _beep…beep…_ coming from the heart monitor. These machines can keep her body alive long after her  _fae_ wishes to be free of it. He hopes they offer healing and not imprisonment.

“Pull the curtains,” he says. Thranduil obeys without so much as a scolding look or a comment about Elrond’s manners growing poor of late.

Ever so gently, Elrond places a hand upon her brow. In a low, musical murmur, he chants  _Lasto beth nîn, tolo dan nan galad…Lasto beth nîn, tolo dan nan galad…Lasto beth nîn, tolo dan nan galad…_

The power of his healing words flows through him, and he gleams with the light of the Eldar. He remains by her side, still speaking the words, as the nurses change shifts. He is desperate to save her, to spare Nichelle from the fate that befell Lady Celebrían, but though he calls to Nichelle, pleading her to hear his voice and return to the light, she remains unresponsive.

Lady Twinkie, as she promised, returns to see Nichelle. That she is silent as Elrond intones in Sindarin and Quenya, over and over again, speaks volumes about her worry. She stays until the nurses change shifts again.

Thranduil remains until he cannot delay his assignment any further. He doesn’t have Lord Elrond’s skill at healing, so he is useless here, but he can purge some of his anger and sorrow by taking care of the traitors he was sent to eliminate.

 

To a rat in the city, every night is Devil’s Night. Every night is the night they may be shrieked at, cursed at, spit on, pissed on, or be pelted with various objects from glass bottles to knives to bullets. Every night is the night to run and hide from humans.

For this particular rat, in this particular back alley, Devil’s Night brings the heady, intoxicating scents of tasty morsels tucked away in garbage bags left outside by homes and restaurants. With only a few minutes of gnawing, a week’s worth of food will be at its whiskers.

The rat twitches its nose as it catches a tangy, metallic odor that can only be one thing: fresh blood. Where there is fresh blood, fresh meat is nearby. It abandons the garbage, turning toward the scent and hurrying along the rain-slick pavement. The rat follows the odor to where it’s strongest and comes to a gigantic metal door. It pauses and listens for humans and other predators.

Behind the door, the rat hears the arrhythmic steps of three humans moving back and forth. The rat, if it is quick and remains hidden, may take a peek at what lies beyond without being seen. And it may, perhaps, get a few bites of fresh, warm meat. The rat flattens and slips beneath the door.

The rat keeps close to the wall, shying from the meager light as it passes the humans. They all appear as black silhouettes amid a field of various gray blurs shifting back and forth, emitting grunts and a few of those strange human calls. However, there is one among them who looks like a human and kind of smells like one too, but moves so much like a cat that the rat’s instincts compel it to steer clear. There are liquid gurgles as two of the shadowy figures collapse upon the ground, and the smell of blood grows even stronger.

Then, the rat is alone with the catlike human (or is it a humanlike cat?). The creature retrieves something from itself, and the rat vaguely recognizes the tones coming from a tiny device in the creature’s paw. As the (not quite) human makes its strange noises into the device, the rat scuttles toward what it recognizes as newly dead meat and starts to chew.

 

In the back room of a small building tucked within the shadows of two larger buildings, a landline phone rings. On the third ring, it is picked up.

“Charlie’s Cleaning Service.”

“Good evening, Charlie. This is Mr. King.”

“How may we help you, Mr. King?”

“I need a dinner reservation for three. You came highly recommended.”

“Of course, sir. We are the best in the business.”

“How long is the wait?”

“For you, sir? Ten minutes at the most. In the meantime, I hear that Chloe’s makes an excellent martini and is conveniently located in downtown Detroit.”

“Thank you, Charlie.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. King.”

 

Thranduil returns to the ICU after he concludes his assignment. The nurses say Nichelle is in critical but stable condition, but he knows that can change at a moment’s notice. Elrond stands at Nichelle’s side, still and quiet as a statue as he looks upon her. That awful hollowness is gone, replaced by something far more dangerous. There is a cold gleam in his eye that calls to mind the fell blades of the Noldor. 

_“What is that?” he asks Legolas, glancing at the sheathed sword he carries.  
_

_“A blade from Gondolin,” he says, “Orcrist.”  
_

_“Where did you get it?”  
_

_“The Dwarf stole it, so I took it back from him.”  
_

_Legolas draws Orcrist with a smooth flourish. Light dances on the keen edge._

_“It’s so light,” he says._

“What I would give to know who did this,” he says. His voice sounds the way newly sawed wood feels when rubbed against the grain. Thanduil does not doubt that if Elrond knew who was responsible and of their whereabouts, he would be carving them up into pieces right now.

Twinkie arrives at the ICU carrying a stuffed shopping bag. She speaks to the nurse standing at the desk, leaving the bag with her. She and Thranduil share their greetings, and she resumes her vigil by Nichelle’s bed. Elrond lingers for a few moments. Then he leaves.

 

David scans the elegant lines of black ink on Lucky’s handwritten letter and frowns.

“You want to resign? Why?” asks David. Lucky doesn’t say anything, just keeps his eyes glued to the floor.

“Are you unhappy working here?”

No response.

“Is this about your…lady friend?”

No response.

David sighs. The last thing he needs, especially so soon after Devil’s Night, is his best staff quitting on him. They have a shortage of people as it is. Lucky working double shifts two and three times a week has been a lifesaver. There has to be a way around this. He can’t do without Lucky, not right now.

“Listen,” he says, not sure what he wants to say next, but pressing on anyway, “This city isn’t easy on people, and this job is stressful at the best of times. But I gotta level with you: you’re the best I’ve ever seen at it, and we need you here. So, how about this: you finish the week, and after that, you take an extended leave of absence. Whatever it is you need to do, do it. But come back, OK? And when you do, we can talk about making you a doctor, alright?”

Lucky seems to think this over for a bit, and he nods. David exhales.

“Good. Don’t go around scaring me like that. So, whatcha gonna do now?”

 

“Has she no family who will come to see her?” asks Thranduil.

Twinkie shakes her head. “Her grandmama brought her up, and she passed in Nicki’s junior year. Her brother doing twenty years for armed robbery or something like that. She got a sister live somewhere in Africa. Ghana, I think.”

When Thranduil leaves to call Tien, the sky is overcast. It smells like rain and sorrow. Elrond leans against a brick column at the edge of the emergency room. Thranduil wonders what Gandalf would say. He’d probably do nothing but light his pipe and speak in riddles about dark forces converging here.

He would not be entirely wrong, though. There is something that hides behind the shadowy places of this city, a sickness that eats away at its heart, shitting out unnatural cruelty and despair. In Middle-earth, this sleepless malice was Sauron, but the Dark Lord is vanquished, dissolved into nothing like his Ring.

What could this evil presence be?

_(The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.)_

Thranduil hits speed dial and smiles when Tien picks up the phone. He listens intently while Tien tells of her great adventure to the supermarket. The Battle of the Parking Space is a highlight of the tale. He needs this bit of normalcy, a reprieve from the relentless pressures of both his occupation and what has happened to Nichelle.

“How’s your girlfriend?” asks Tien.

“She’s…stable,” he says.

“How’s my boyfriend?”

He lets the joke slide.

“He’s…doing the best he can.”

“Mmm. He’s not doing anything stupid, is he?”

Thranduil sighs, “Not yet.” 

 

It’s so sterile here. No color, no texture, no nothing. And they don’t let you have flowers to spruce things up, either. It’s like you’re already dead. Nicki would hate it if she was awake. The nurse said she can bring cards and balloons, though. She gotta pick some up for next time.

Twinkie hopes that, wherever she is, Nicki’s doing OK. She hopes Nicki’s running through open green fields like Julie Andrews on  _The Sound of Music_. If she’s trapped in some kind of personal hell, it might be better if she– if she were– God, she’s not ready to even think about any of that.

She flinches when she notices movement out the corner of her eye then turns and sees Elrond right next to her. How the fuck does he do that? He seems like his usual self

(but not quite)

and she takes some comfort in the fact that, no matter what happens, at least somebody won’t fall to pieces.

“Lady Twinkie,” he says, “may I have a word?”

“Um, sure.”

He gestures for her to follow him, and he leads her down too-bright corridors that all look the same except for the faces of the people working there. He pushes open a metal door, and they step onto one of several stairways winding up the hospital. He peeks up the stairs then stands against the wall, arms folded. Save for the sharp glint in his eyes, his face is completely blank.

As she looks at him, the odd thought occurs to her that he wears hospital scrubs the way most dudes wear Armani.

She looks at him again.

Maybe a stroke of insight comes from some higher power, or maybe she’s just getting used to him, but he seems tense, like he’s as tightly coiled as a spring, or a viper, and that any moment, he will shoot forward and attack.

“Was Nichelle in any kind of trouble?” he asks.

“No.”

“Has she ever spoken of anyone who gave her cause to feel threatened?”

“No.”

“Is there anyone you know who stands to gain from any harm coming to her?”

“No, nobody. Why? What’s going on?”

“I know not. It does not make any– why would anyone go to such lengths to harm her? What is the motive? What does anyone stand to gain from hurting someone who could never harm anyone? Perhaps I seek a reason where there is none.”

He sighs, and it makes him look ten thousand years old. Twinkie feels for him. She really does. When everything’s falling apart, you need something to hold on to, something to make sense of all the crazy around you. But the cold, hard truth of it is this world sucks and there’s no reason why.

“Worry not for me, Lady Twinkie.”

“Whatcha gonna do?”

Elrond cocks his head to the side and glances upward. It’s so odd to see him do that; it’s so ordinary, so  _human_.

“It’s interesting; you are the second to ask me that question today,” he says, his eyes glinting like steel. He seems there, but also…not, as though he’s speaking to a part of himself he usually keeps carefully hidden. It makes her think about something she learned in the court-mandated anger management workshop she took a few years ago after she whupped some white girl’s ass in the mall for calling her a black bitch.

_At first, she doesn’t quite know what to make of Dr. Rydell. He’s nothing like any Ivy League middle-aged to senior white man she’s ever met. With his stocky build and deep, rough voice, he looks like a pit bull on two legs. For a shrink who likely makes six figures a year, he dresses like he wears nothing but hand-me-downs, but he’s got an unfiltered animal magnetism that makes everybody pay attention when he speaks. What gets her respect, though, is that he doesn’t sugarcoat a motherfucking thing.  
_

_A few weeks after starting the workshop, Twinkie takes a chance and opens up for the first time. She bares her soul with these people, these strangers, who have hurt those closest to them out of anger, but she can’t keep it in anymore._

_She talks about how she’s afraid of herself; how easy it was to lose control and hurt someone; how even though the woman did her wrong and deserved a clap back, she feels sick when she imagines how she might let her anger harm the people she cares for most; how she’s so, so scared of what she might do._

_When she’s finished, she’s bawling like a baby. One of the guys at the workshop, Jesus, digs some napkins from his pocket and hands them to her. (Jesus looks tough, but he’s a total sweetheart underneath all that ink and black leather. He moved out to California soon after the workshop, and they still e-mail each other from time to time. He does some kind of work with custom motorcycles.)_

_At the end of the hour, Dr. Rydell has her stay behind for a few minutes. They chat about this and that, and he says something that has stuck with her ever since._

_“Twinkie, there’s two kinds of angry people: explosive and implosive. Explosive is the kind of individual that you see screaming at the cashier for not taking their coupons.”  
_

_“Yeah, that’s me,” she says.  
_

_“Then there’s the implosive. Implosive is the cashier who remains quiet day after day and finally shoots everyone in the store.”_

Elrond is definitely the cashier.

“Elrond?” she says.

“Truthfully, I know not what I will do. I know what I wish to do. I know what I would do were I in Middle-earth. If this were Middle-earth, I would don my armor and my sword, mount my horse, and ride forth. When I came upon the ones responsible, I would decapitate each and every one of them.”

If Twinkie ever doubted that Elrond isn’t from around here, hearing him casually talk about how he wants to cut muthafuckas’ heads off with a goddamn sword convinces her. Elrond is the real deal. No matter how modern he looks, he’s not from this time. He’s not just old school; he’s straight-up medieval. Real medieval, not that Disney shit with the princess and knights and damsels. Ain’t no calling the cops, ain’t no trial, ain’t no  _Let’s talk about this like rational adults_ , just eye for an eye and blood for blood. It’s fuck ‘em up or die trying.

Twinkie’s real glad she’s not whoever did this to Nicki.


	5. Chapter 5

> _Where do bad folks go when they die?  
> _ _They don’t go to heaven where the angels fly  
> _ _They go to the lake of fire and fry  
> _ _Won’t see them again ‘till the fourth of July_  –Nirvana, “Lake of Fire”

It’s odd how completely this city changes from day to night. Skyscrapers once beheld with wonder become towering menaces threatening to crush the tiny beings crawling around them. People who were friendly grow wary of monsters, human and other, lurking around every corner. Every rustle of plastic could be a ghost. Every police car cruising by hides officers with ill intent. 

On these streets where anything and everything can turn into something and eat you alive, Elrond goes door to door speaking to the occupants of the buildings across the street about the night Thrifty Stylez was burned to its skeleton.

_Do you recall seeing anything odd the night Thrifty Stylez burned down?_  A young woman holding a toddler in her arms shakes her head no.

_Was there anyone present who seemed out of place?_  An elderly lady shrugs and says, “No sé.”

_Is there anything you can tell me about who is responsible for the fire at the store across the street?_ A pimply-faced teenager says, “Look, man. I’ma tell you the same thing I told them cops. I ain’t seen shit.”

_I give you my word that anything you tell me will be held in the strictest confi–_ A door slams in his face.

And so it goes for thirty-seven attempts. The only thing he has learned since he started is that no one is willing to talk about what they may have seen that night.

“I seen ‘em,” says a voice from the street. Elrond follows it to a Man sitting atop a layer of cardboard boxes, long, dark toes poking from a hole on the top of worn loafers. The Man’s deep, dark eyes tell Elrond of a life of hardship and sorrow with a few bright points of warmth and comfort.

“What have you seen?” asks Elrond. He squats so that he can look at the Man instead of down at him. The Man tilts his head and shrugs.

“Got a cigarette?”

“I do not smoke.”

“Damn. Hey, I don’t know you from nobody, but can you buy me some? You can get three for a dollar round the corner.”

The healer in him wishes to give the Man a sternly worded lecture about finding a habit more conducive to long-term health and wellness, but this Man seems as if he has been patronized about his life choices far too many times. Elrond buys the Man a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

“You even got me a lighter” he says, “Thanks, man. Now I ain’t gotta hunt for one of these in the trash.”

The Man unwraps the cigarettes, pausing when he notices the $20 bill slipped into the plastic covering the pack. He plucks out a cigarette and puts one in his mouth. He tries to light it, once, twice, thrice, but a gust of wind blows it out each time. The Man rolls his eyes.

“Perhaps that is fate’s way of telling you to quit,” says Elrond.

“Well, you can tell fate that it oughta know that if I don’t die from these, I’ma die from something else.”

Elrond doesn’t quite manage not to chuckle. The Man laughs too, showing his crooked yellow teeth. He ought not laugh at the sober fact of death, but the humor lies in the truth of it.

“What’s your name anyway?”

“Elrond.”

The Man tilts his head and gives him a scrutinizing look.

“Like the character in  _Lord of the Rings_?”

“Um, yes.”

The Man laughs. There’s something rusty about it, like he hasn’t done so in a long while.

“Man, I’m sorry. I thought I had it bad when I got tagged with Thaddeus. I bet people fuck with you a whole lot with that name.”

“Nay. They seem unable to pronounce it. It is rare that people remember it. By casual acquaintances, I have been called Elroy, Elrod, Elwood, Elmo, Elvis, Elton, and the unforgettable Hey You.”

The Man, Thaddeus, laughs until water leaks out of his eyes. He finally lights the cigarette. Smoke strings out the end up toward the sky. He points to the blackened remnants of Thrifty Stylez.

“How you know that lady that worked there anyway?”

“She is my…

(lady)

(wife)

(soulmate)

“…beloved.”

“Oh. Sorry to hear that, man. She’s a real nice lady. She didn’t deserve that.”

“How do you know her?” asks Elrond.

“She was nice to me. Last Christmas she gave me a twenty so I could go get something to eat that wasn’t from no dumpster. She prob’ly don’t remember, but I don’t forget a kindness. That’s rare to come by in this city, ya dig?”

Elrond nods. The need for a kinder world is a large part of why he kept Imladris open to all beings of good will no matter their kind or their origin. Some of the Elves of other realms joked that he would even allow Orcs into the Last Homely House should their goodwill be genuine. It was not entirely untrue.

A brief look into Thaddeus’ eyes shows Elrond hard-won wisdom and grim resolve. There is more to him than he lets on, possibly more than he even knows. There’s goodness in him and an unblemished nobility hidden beneath his ragged clothes and unkempt hair and beard. He reminds Elrond of Aragorn.

"What did you see, Thaddeus?”

Thaddeus speaks with a faraway look on his face, “Something told me to stay sober that day. Just like today something told me I needed to be sharp.”

“What is it, Thaddeus?”

Thaddeus’ telling of the story ignites in his mind. As the tale goes on, he feels like he’s there, and from Thaddeus’ mind, he glimpses the persons who left Nichelle for dead.  _Now I know who to seek_ , says a fell voice from the dark crevices of his spirit,  _and they will regret what they have done here_.

“It was getting dark, right around time for most places around here to close up shop. An SUV parked at the corner right by the fire hydrant. Then four dudes come out. These ain’t the Thrifty Stylez kinda guys. 

“Two of ‘em young and dumb gangbanger kinda guys. Flashy jewelry, the new Jordans, looking around for somebody to start something, that shit. The other two, they the real gangstas: sharp suits, polished shoes, real calm. One of ‘em had a fancy briefcase. The last one is a big sucka, look ‘bout seven feet tall and then some, built like a fuckin’ freight train. When I saw him, I thought he was Goliath. Y’know, from the Bible. 

“One of the young and dumb guys stayed out front while the other three went in. The young and dumb one out front holds the door open for the other three. The other young and dumb one goes in first then comes back with the all-clear. Then the two real gangstas go in: first the guy with the briefcase, then the big guy. They in there for about fifteen, twenty minutes, and it feels…wrong, y’know, that sick feeling you get in your gut when something bad happens?”

Elrond nods. He knows that feeling all too well. 

Thaddeus continues, “They in there about fifteen, twenty minutes, and then I heard the gun. Then they come out the store and drive away. My eyes was too fucked up to see the plates. Then the alarm goes off, and the place is on fire. Just–whoompf–like a match hitting a bottle of hooch. Nothing in there shoulda come out alive. Nothing.”

Thaddeus shuts his eyes and shakes his head. Elrond reaches toward him and clasps his arm, sending comfort and hope to him. Thaddeus’  _fae_  is dim, thin, and not long for this world. It seems something else will be killing him soon.

“Ordell!” gasps Thaddeus.

“Who is Ordell?”

“One of the young and dumb ones. I heard the guy with the briefcase shouting something at him, and he called him Ordell.”

” _Hannon le_ , Thaddeus.”

“What the hell is that? Some kinda Latin or something?”

“Edhellen.”

“What?”

“Elvish.”

Thaddeus yawns.

“Elvish? Well, I’ll be damned. I knew there was something about you. A’ight, I told you what I know. Time for my nap.”

Thaddeus opens one eye and says, “Thanks again for the cigarettes and lighter. And that twenty.”

“Think nothing of it, Thaddeus.”

Thaddeus nods and yawns, “Night, Hey You.”

“Sleep well, Thaddeus.”

Thaddeus wraps his coat around himself and breathes his last. Elrond silently remains by him as his spirit lingers just so, as if getting used to the idea of being dead. A red and white automobile of a style no longer manufactured turns onto the street and slows down. There is no one in the driver’s seat. The vehicle moves through its own malevolent will.

“You will leave him be,” he says to the infernal machine. The car waits, daring Elrond to make it do his bidding.

“ _Á auta!_ ”

His wrath stirred, he turns to the diabolical thing. The veil between the Seen and Unseen parts, revealing the true form of Elrond Peredhel–a creature of diaphanous flesh with hair like liquid shadow whipping in a ghostly wind. 

The car groans into gear and moves on.

 

November fog clings to the roots of Motor City, its tendrils spreading out through streets and back alleys like the arms of an octopus. The effect is like something out of a horror movie where the weather and murders of crows advertise a ghostly or demonic presence.

Ordell pays it no mind. Who can care about the weather when there’s so much quality time to be had with his three best friends: Jackson, Grant, and Franklin? He thumbs through the thick roll of bills, some crisp, most not-so-crisp. Fifteen hundred. Not bad, but not his best, either. Most of it has to go to pay off his “debt” to the mob anyway.

He lights up a cigarette. He wishes it was a blunt, but he hasn’t sold weed in…damn, has it been that long? He sucks the nicotine into his lungs, breathing out smoke. The bitter taste wakes his senses, and for the first time in many nights, he looks up at the stars. The three stars on Orion’s belt gleam like gems. Now  _that’s_  bling. 

He leans against the wall like that, smoking a cigarette and looking up at the stars, until some instinct alerts him to a presence nearby. He glances back and forth along the street for anyone who looks like they don’t belong. Last thing his ass needs is to get locked up again. The fog clears just a bit, and a

(ghost)

silhouette of a figure walks toward him with slow, purposeful strides. From the cut of its jacket, it’s probably a

(werewolf)

man. Ordell doesn’t know what it is about this guy. Maybe he’s a cop or

(vampire)

some homeless guy itching for a hit, but there’s something off, something  _wrong_ , about him. He wants to book it outta here as fast as his legs can carry him, but what if this dude just wants to buy? He gonna look like a chump just taking off running. He takes another drag off his cigarette.

“Come again later, man, I’m all out.”

The dude’s a lot closer now than he was before. How the– no, fuck this. Ordell runs. If he can make it ten blocks, he’ll make it to his hood before his pursuer can catch up. He wants to look back to see how far behind the chaser is, but something inside him says  _keep going and don’t look back_.

He runs until his legs and lungs are on fire, runs until he crosses Livernois onto the street where a car on cinder blocks bears a spindly hand rendered in white spray paint, the kind a child would draw on stick figures. He keeps running until he topples over a garbage can tipped on its side. The noise adds a headache to his burning thighs and breathless diaphragm.

He scrambles to his feet, wraps his hand around a steel pipe jutting from another trash can. He whips around, pipe raised, and sees….

No one.

So why the hell does he still feel on edge?

Something  _tap-taps_  on his shoulder. He swings without even thinking about it. A punch like a sledgehammer slams into his solar plexus. He crumples. The pipe clangs to the ground. Breathless, he heaves himself to his knees and needs to take a break. Whoever this motherfucker is knocked the wind completely out of him.

“You don’t…know…wh-who you’re…f-fucking…with.”

“Ordell, I take it?”

Ordell props himself up against the wall of Vic’s Pawn Shop. When he looks at who hit him, he expects Mike Tyson or George Foreman. What’s actually in front of him is a tall white guy who might be part Indian because of that long, black hair of his. Or maybe he’s some kind of fag. Dude is beautiful, though. Ordell ain’t no homo or no shit like that, but this guy definitely hit the lotto in the looks department. Except for the hair and eyes like polished silver, he looks like he was carved out of marble. Goddamn, how is this man even real, and what the fuck is he gonna do with that pipe he’s resting on his shoulder like a Louisville slugger? The observant part of his mind notes that the guy’s hands are strong yet supple, like a surgeon’s or a musicians. 

_Or an assassin’s_ , adds his paranoia. For all he knows, this asshole could work for the cartel and is here to beat him to death for dealing on their turf. That don’t mean he’s going out like a chump.

“What the fuck you want?”

“You went to a clothing store a week ago, did you not?” asks the guy. Ordell can’t quite place the accent. It’s kind of English, but not quite. It’s lilting, somewhat musical, as if he’s reciting poetry and not about to unleash on him like Liam Neeson in  _Taken_. He’s definitely a foreigner, though.

“I don’t know what the fuck you talking about.”

“October 30th, your Devil’s Night. A store named Thrifty Stylez was burned down and its proprietor wounded.”

“Yeah, yeah some bitch got her ass beat and shot in the head, whatever.”

The dude slaps him so hard he gets whiplash. Blood spills from his lip.

“Her name is Nichelle.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know her. I fucked her tight virgin ass and she loved it!”

The guy jabs him in the belly with the pipe. Ordell doubles over and vomits what little he has in his stomach.

“I ask again: were you at Thrifty Stylez a week ago?”

Ordell nods.

“You and your cohorts beat a woman nearly to death. You shot her, and you burned her store down with her in it. You left her for dead.”

Ordell shakes his head.

“You wrong; I never touched that bitch,” he rasps. 

Ordell feels hands grip the collar of his shirt, and his stomach drops as he’s lifted off the ground with shocking speed. Dull pain spreads through his back as he’s slammed against the wall. Though his face is blank, the guy’s eyes blaze with the flickering light of the sign in front of Vic’s Pawn Shop.

“Say that word again, young man, and you will most certainly regret it,” says the dude in that tone parents take with their little kids. The hustler in Ordell quickly makes the calculations and decides that the guy who can outfight, outrun, and lift a grown man two feet in the air without breaking a sweat is the kind of guy he should watch his language around.

“I want to know who else was there. I want to know their part in it. I want to know why they did it.”

“Look, man, I can’t. If I talk, I’m dead.”

“How much did you care about her life?” asks the guy, his tone as cold and hard as the pipe clutched in the fists balling the collar of Ordell’s shirt.

The headlights of a garbage truck light turn onto the street, splashing water onto the parked cars as it passes by. The dude looks like he’s half a second from throwing him in front of it.

“No, no, no, no, don’t. Please. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“You have until that vehicle reaches us before I change my mind.”

“Alright, alright, alright. I was there. I didn’t put a hand on her, I swear to God. I just watched the back in case she tried to make a run for it. I was watching the back, and Twitch was up front. He’s a firebug; he the one who lit the place up. And, uh, there was the suit, some advisor for a real estate company. And Fred.”

The garbage truck gets close. Ordell relaxes when he isn’t tossed into it and smashed into a pulp.

“What did they want with her?”

“Some real estate deal, I don’t know. My job was to watch the back, and that’s all I did, I swear to God!“

“Where do I find this Fred?”

“I can’t–you don’t know what he can do.”

Fred is a force of nature. He’s seven feet and three hundred and fifty pounds of Fuck You Up. Fred snaps arms, legs, and necks like twigs. Ordell’s seen him tear limbs off people and crush their skulls with his bare hands, all without the slightest change in expression. One time, some MMA dude took money without taking a dive in the underground fighting circuit. He thought he could take care of Fred, so Fred calmly bent his spine in half. Fred ain’t nothing to fuck with.

“He…he handle business all over. He do the dirty work for the people who really run this city.”

“Who are they?”

“I dunno, man. Nobody know. Please don’t kill me.”

The guy looks at him,  _into_  him, and though he’s wearing clothes and underwear, he feels utterly exposed, as if the guy’s opening him up and looking at his insides. Judging by the look of subtle disgust on his perfectly smooth face, the guy sees something he doesn’t like. Whatever it is, it must not be that important, for he lowers the pipe and lets Ordell fall to the ground.

“You are a disgrace,” he says. To Ordell, the words sound God split open the heavens specifically to tell him he ain’t shit. He wonders, briefly, if he’s wasted his life making all the wrong decisions, a thought which sometimes haunts him when he’s alone with only the things inside his head for company.

“What the fuck you know about–”

The dude is gone, if he was even there to begin with. Maybe this city’s finally made him crazy.

 

Elrond closes his eyes and inhales the steam rising from the water jetting from the shower head. He doesn’t recall the walk home or undressing, only that icky feeling crawling over his skin as he thinks about the rusty residue that lingered on his palm. Gooseflesh sprouts on his skin as he thinks about what he almost did. The metal club fit perfectly in his hand, its balance superb, as if it were made specifically for the fell intent he had for Ordell. But as he raised his hand to smash Ordell’s wickedness from this world forever, he was overcome by a strong sense of…what does Nichelle call it?… _déjà vu_.

_“…don’t! Please! I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” begs Ordell, but it’s too late. Ordell was dead from the moment he walked into Nichelle’s store with ill purpose. With a heave and a shove, Ordell is sent into the path of the oncoming truck, screaming as he’s struck and ground beneath the truck’s wheels, pulverized into a red splatter on the pavement._

He should not feel this way. He is better than this. Yet, these dark thoughts cling to him, demanding retribution for what was done to

(Celebrían)

Nichelle, who is now hooked to machines, struggling for every breath. Her assailants may deserve such a fate owing to the viciousness of the attack and the ever-slimming chance they will seek redemption, but he should take no pleasure in it. Not like–

_She pounces on him in the gardens. He lets himself get wrestled to the ground for it pleases her to have such power over him, and it pleases him when she straddles him just so. This part of their marriage is more active now than it was when they were first wed. After they satisfy their hunger for each other, there is no question that the violets are ruined. Úllothon will be furious, but Elrond cares not. Who can worry about a few crushed flowers when the blossom of his life snuggles against him?_

_“Tell me a secret,” she says._

_“I have no secrets.”  
_

_“Oh, please. I see the way you look upon the wives of the Dúnedain. Do you wish I were mortal like them?”  
_

_“Now that is a thought. While you are young and fair, I could teach you all the ways I wish to be pleased in the bedchamber. Then, when you grow old, or I tire of you, I can exchange you for a younger one.”  
_

_“That is revolting! I can’t believe you would say something like that!” she says. She plucks his ear. Sometimes he wishes he never told her about Maedhros doing that to him and Elros when they misbehaved.  
_

_“Ow! Peace, peace, my lady I speak only of Mannish custom!”  
_

_“Blaming Men, are we?” she asks. She plucks his other ear.  
_

_“Ow! I surrender. I surrender. I shall tell you a secret.”  
_

_“You have to make it good for misbehaving.”  
_

_“I see. I shall tell you something deep, dark, and personal.”  
_

_“I’m listening.”  
_

_He puts her hands in his. It comforts him to have someone to hold on to, someone safe and lasting the way so many others were not. He cannot imagine what will happen if she or the children were taken from him._

_“I am still haunted by the wars.”  
_

_“I understand. So many–”  
_

_“It is not those among our people who were lost of which I speak. I do harbor the pain of their loss, but what I speak of…it involves things I have done, things I cannot–”_

_She strokes his hair. Her touch gives him courage._

_“I killed people.”  
_

_“Such is the nature of war, my love. You must not blame yourself. You are not at fault for defending yourself and your people.”  
_

_“I know, but I–”  
_

_He shakes his head. She does not understand. War makes such horrors necessary, yes, but what makes him feel like the most wretched creature in all of Arda is that he secretly–_

_“Sometimes, I enjoyed it.”_

_She remains silent, and he’s certain he disgusts her.._

_“They were evil Men who had done vile things to their own people as well as ours. My words spoke of justice and our somber duty to uphold it, but in my heart, the vengeance tasted sweet.”_

_She says nothing. She must hate him so much._

_“Devils of the West. That is their term for the Eldar and our allies. I once thought it astonishingly ignorant of them to call us such, but as our time in Mordor dragged on, I began to consider that maybe we have earned it.”_

_She’s quiet, staring at him with those bright eyes that see everything (for she is like her mother that way), and he feels more worthless than_ _Orc droppings._

_“So I dwell here in my House, surrounded by beauty I do not feel within myself, hoping that if I do enough good, if I spend the rest of my days sustaining life rather than taking it, I can atone for all I’ve done. It works better on some days than others.”  
_

_She hugs him close._

Elrond lets the cooling water wash over him. It clears his thoughts and brings him back to himself. 

What befell Nichelle that night is not chance. That much is obvious. But what do those responsible seek to gain through doing her harm? Ordell mentioning an attempted business transaction suggests the aim is money (how typical of Men of this ilk), but sense of the Unseen points to an ineffable wrongness at the heart of this city, suggests a deeper purpose, though it eludes him. He must (and will) uncover it. 

But first: Fred.

 

Thranduil rings the doorbell to the small two-story house. The bell chimes a welcoming rhythm. Measured footsteps approach the door. The door opens. Standing before him is a gray-haired woman whose sunglasses cover half her smooth, brown face.

“Pardon me, Miss…Agnes?” he asks. He knows her name perfectly well, has known and remembered it from the one time Elrond spoke it aloud, but it puts mortals at ease when he pretends to struggle remembering small details like that.

“How you know my name?”

“Sorry, ma’am. My name is Jonathan King. I believe my friend Elrond lives here. I was in town for a few days, but I have to return home tomorrow. I just wanted to say goodbye. I hope I’m not intruding.”

“Oh, sugar, I’m sorry. He ain’t been home for a couple days.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“I figured it got something to do with his job. He work all kinda crazy hours. Sometimes I only know he been here ‘cuz I hear him leave. Try his job. He probably over there.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“You welcome.”

Frustration mounting, Thranduil trots down the porch steps and heads down the street where his car sits–thankfully untouched–dangerously close to the fire hydrant. Despite Miss Agnes’ assurances, Elrond is not at work. The hospital staff claims that he’s on an extended leave of absence for “personal reasons.” 

Where the hell is he?

Tien will never let him live this down. As far as she’s concerned, Elrond’s care and well-being are his responsibility. Why a grown Elf lord some 6,500 years old needs him to look after him is anyone’s guess, but her irritation at his more negligent moments in San Diego were indication enough that he should take the matter seriously. In his more sullen moments, such as now, he wonders where Tien’s deep and abiding concern for her husband has gone.

_“Oooh, such a handsome man,” coos Tien. This is why he didn’t want her to meet Elrond. The flirting is harmless enough, for Tien is faithful, and Elrond only has eyes for Lady Nichelle though he has said nothing of it. Still, it stings his pride to know that his beloved could have stars in her eyes for anyone other than him._

_Elrond, for his part, gives her a bashful smile that seems tailor-made for women who fawn over him, and this makes her even worse._

_“Aw, he shy. So cute,” she says. Thranduil’s head nearly explodes._

_Cute? Cute! Elrond Half-elven is not cute. Elrond Half-elven is not adorable. Elrond Half-elven does not make people go, “Awww!” and share videos of him on Vine and Instagram. Elrond Half-elven is wise; Elrond Half-elven is majestic; Elrond Half-elven is venerable, powerful, kind, and occasionally terrifying. But Elrond Half-elven is not, nor has he ever been, cute–not now, probably not as a child, and likely not even as an infant. Elrond Half-elven was born serious and has only waited for his body to catch up._

Now Nichelle is comatose, and Elrond is missing. Clearly, Detroit hates him and wants to ruin his entire life. Kind of like Laketown.

 

Ramirez sucks down a Red Bull and grimaces at the taste. Fuck, that’s some nasty shit, but it does the job of keeping him up. Night shifts always kick his ass. He glances at the picture of his little angel

(closest thing to God he’s ever believed in)

and it gives him just enough energy to fight through the exhaustion and boredom. If it wasn’t for her, he would’ve told this job to kiss his ass and fucked off to a private security position: better pay, better hours, and no fucking paperwork. He needs the benefits of a government job, though.

Blake parks his butt on his desk, goofy grin spread wide. Something about the angle of the light and the angle of Blakes’ head makes it look like shadowy noose is around his neck, but that could be exhaustion and an overactive imagination fueled by lack of sleep.

“Guess what, Sarge?” he asks. Jesus, that rookie earnestness needs to be taken down about twelve notches. It’s way too late–or is it early–to play guessing games right now.

“Get to the point, Blake.”

“Some small-time dealer just turned himself in.”

“You don’t say?”

“But get this: he says he was beaten up by a man with pointed ears.”

“You mean like an elf or something?”

“I know, right? He mighta taken a few hits off his own supply with that one.”

God, does this kid ever have an off day? Hold on. Did Blake just say–no, it can’t be. What are the chances of it being that guy of all people? At the time, he chalked the guy’s strange appearance and mannerisms to him being one of the freaks who come out on Devil’s Night. Maybe he even came from out of town to take part in all the craziness going on. Then again, he did seem totally lost in a way that went deeper than being a new arrival to Detroit. He seemed more like a new arrival to Planet Earth, if Ramirez is to be honest.

“Does that description remind you of anyone, Blake?”

“Can’t say it does.”

“Lemme guess: he’s a Caucasian male about six-and-a-half feet tall with long, black hair.”

“How’d you know?”

“He was brought in, remember? A year ago? Devil’s Night. A B&E at a clothing store. The guy didn’t speak English?”

Blake thinks on it a moment. Ramirez can almost see the light bulb coming on.

“Oh, right! Him! Didn’t his girlfriend or somebody pick him up?”

“I don’t think they were together, but yeah, she came and got him.”

“Maybe we can ask her some questions about him.”

“That won’t be happening, Blake.”

“Wh–”

“She’s laid up at the ICU at Henry Ford. They messed her up pretty bad. She’s been comatose since…”

“Devil’s Night?”

Ramirez doesn’t have to say a word to confirm it. It’s a shame. By all accounts, she’s a real nice lady making an honest living. What’s her name? Nicole? Michelle? Something like that. But that’s Devil’s Night for you: hurting the good people who don’t hurt anybody while all the scum of the city get away without a scratch. A deep sadness sags inside him as he thinks about the world he brought his baby girl into.

“But, Sarge,” says Blake, “that guy didn’t have pointed ears.”

“They were pretty fuckin’ pointy when I looked at ‘em.”

Blake shakes his head, “No, Sarge, they weren’t. Pull up his mugshot; you’ll see.”

Ramirez slides the mouse back and forth. The computer monitor wakes up. Ramirez taps in his password to login, and he clicks his way to the mugshots. He types in  _John Doe_ , and he pulls up the little icon of the weirdest perp he’s ever met.

And there’s John Doe.

Caucasian male, six feet six-and-a-half inches, black hair, gray

(silver)

eyes, and ears that come to a leaflike point.

“I told you he has pointy ears,” he says.

“They look normal to me.”

Ramirez’s heart rate quickens. It’s probably the Red Bull, but still: why does he see pointed ears while Blake sees nothing? What the hell is going on here?

 

Twinkie places another card on the food cart next to Nicki’s bed. The nurses don’t say anything, but she knows what they’re thinking: Nicki never gonna wake up. That could be why she ain’t seen Elrond in a good minute. She hopes he’s out there fucking up whoever did this to Nicki, and she hopes he doesn’t do something quick and merciful like beheading. She wants Elrond to stomp them in the pavement so hard their remains can only be cleaned up by street sweepers. Those motherfuckers better be glad she never went to the Army.

“Is there no change in her condition?”

Twinkie startles and shrieks, but it’s just Elrond. He really needs to not sneak up on her like that, or he might wind up with mace in his face or a kick in the balls one day. Ain’t he ever heard of announcing himself?

“Where the hell you been? You know your boy looking for you.”

“I…had matters that required my attention.”

That’s a bunch of flowery bullshit if she ever heard it.

“The fuck you been doin’?”

“Please do not make me lie to you, Lady Twinkie.”

Well, if he wanna be like that…

“What is her condition?” he asks.

“Same.”

Elrond gently strokes Nicki’s fingertips. He looks like he wants to hold her hand, but he can’t because her arm is wrapped in bandages all the way up to her elbow. He tenderly strokes her bruised cheek.

Nicki lies peacefully in the bed, almost as though she’s

(dead)

sleeping.

“The nurse said they probably gonna do a skin graft for her arm. She might need physical therapy if– when she wake up.”

Twinkie swallows. She can’t cry, not right now. She gotta keep it together. Nicki need her to be–

She wipes a tear before it falls. She thinks about what Nicki would do if it was her laid up in a bed with tubes making her eat, piss, and breathe. Nicki’d be sad, and she’d come visit every day, but she wouldn’t fall apart, not the way Twinkie has fallen apart every day since this happened. All this time she’s thinking she’s the strong one, but when it comes to big shit like this, she’s weak as a kitten.

“Do you think Nicki in there?” she asks.

“Her spirit has not departed this world, but her mind is beyond my reach. Perhaps it is best that she is not aware of how badly she is hurt.”

She’s glad to hear Elrond say that. He doesn’t try to make things seem better than they are, but despite how bad it is, there’s still hope. Twinkie’s glad he’s here, so she won’t have to deal with this alone. He leans to Nicki’s ear, tracing the shell of the lobe, and whispers something in that weird, pretty language of his. One of these days, she’s gotta find out what he’s saying.

“How come when you talk to her, you never speak English? Why you talk to her in a language she don’t understand?”

Elrond pauses and looks straight at her. He says, “It is not my wish to conceal the intent of my words, Lady Twinkie. However, it is much easier for me to express myself in my mother tongue. By some means, I know not how, she understands my meaning though not the words I speak. It is my hope that the power within the speech of my people can reach her, though it may be folly.”

Deep sadness, the kind so deep and strong it cannot be spoken, washes over him, and Twinkie’s heart clinches to see it. She wants to make it better, to tell him everything will be OK tomorrow, but both of them have been through too much for that Pollyanna bullshit.

There are no more words that day, even after Elrond leaves.


	6. Chapter 6

 

> _See these eyes so green_  
>  _I can stare for a thousand years_  
>  _Colder than the moon_  
>  _It’s been so long_  
>  _And I’ve been putting out fire_  
>  _WITH GASOLINE!!!!_  –David Bowie, “Cat People (Putting Out the Fire)”

Tucked away between two formidable skyscrapers, there’s a motel that does not receive guests from the general public. It’s a small thing, only about twenty rooms. The light shines from one room facing the street, making the motel seem to wink at any who pass by.

( _”Some places are like people: some shine and some don’t.”_ )

Inside, the blandly unoffensive decor barely covers up the sticky, viscous texture of blood and death seeping through the floorboards. Many people have died here over the centuries, first with the slaughter of the people who first made their homes here and then as this place was chosen for other purposes, most of them secret.

In one room, the soft lights fall on two bodies lying on the carpet, blood trickling from wounds in the jugular vein inflicted by the blood-soaked fountain pen. The television, almost painfully loud, announces that pre-sales for the second film adaptation of  _The Dark Tower_  series are already breaking box office records. It does nothing to cover up the faint scent of death slowly oozing into the room.

_(redrum…redruM!…redruM!…REDRUM!!…REDRUM!!!)_

Thranduil sighs at the mess. This is the problem with sticking around in a city after you’ve supposed to have left. Bad guys plot revenge, so they send a couple of goons to your hotel room to kill you only to wind up being killed themselves. Thranduil makes another dinner reservation with Charlie. At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before someone catches him. Cops generally don’t care about criminals meeting a violent end, but when bodies start piling up, even the most apathetic of them tend to pay attention.

It’s not jail that worries him. Working for the government, though tangentially, has certain benefits. Thranduil is far more concerned about exposure. All it would take is bribing or threatening the right people, and his cover is blown. Then he would be in a world of shit. 

_(All hail Discordia!)_

He holds no illusions about loyalty from the United States government. They wouldn’t think twice about cutting him loose and feeding him to the wolves to prevent being linked to the clandestine activities he’s party to. He doesn’t blame them. As a king, he would do and say the same:  _Although it is unfortunate that one of my own people would do such a thing, he acted alone and of his own volition_.  _Assassin? What assassin? Elves are not so dishonorable as to keep such individuals in their employ, and I am insulted you would dare insinuate that any Elf would kill enemies for money. (We kill our enemies for free)._

But what

(frightens)

(terrifies)

disquiets him most is someone coming after Tien to get at him. The government can hide people, but a vengeful and determined person could find her. In this era when everything is online and tracked, no one is untouchable.

Elbereth, he needs a drink. Thankfully, a liquor store is just around the corner.

It’s a clear night for once, no rain or fog. The wind blows air in from the river and the lakes, bringing the scent of moisture and cooling the night to an almost winter chill. It doesn’t bother him, for Elves are comfortable in heat or cold. The stars shine bright. A lovely night for a walk.

He buys himself a bottle of tequila, which he will savor in the relative coziness of his motel room. As he steps out of the store, he darts out of the way just in time to avoid a colliding into a short, stocky man running at breakneck speed from…Elrond?

Thranduil may or may not stick his leg out to trip him up. It is rather amusing to see him fall on his face. The man scrambles to his feet and whips out a pocket knife. He jabs and swipes, quick as a viper, but Elrond is quicker. He evades the knife and sinks his fist directly into the man’s solar plexus. That maneuver–

_All around the camp, raucous voices raise in bawdy songs. Tonight is a festival of some sort, and the Men are getting completely drunk and making absolute fools of themselves, much to the amusement of Thranduil and the other Elves present. Some of the Eldar make bets on how much a Man will drink before making himself sick. The guesses for the amount of wine and beer a Man can stand cannot be low enough._

_Galdor, one of the Greenwood’s captains and one of his best friends, approaches from the dimly lit camp and says, “Your Majesty, you need to come see this.”_

_For a moment, Thranduil wonders how the enemy has managed infiltrated the camp, but Galdor leads him toward a circle of people, male and female, Men and Elves (and even, to his surprise, a Dwarf) sitting around a bright fire and staring at a figure speaking most animatedly about…history?_ _As he draws nearer, he recognizes the voice as Lord Elrond’s._ _He is telling the story of the Elves Awakening at Cuiviénen. All the while, seasoned veterans and battle-hardened warriors sit and listen to him with the same rapt attention as children listening to their parents tell a bedtime story._

_He is incredibly drunk. It’s far too subtle for Men to notice, but Elves who have observed Lord Elrond over the centuries know him as the most sober-minded individual in all of Middle-earth. Reserved and almost taciturn, many of the Noldor wonder if Gil-galad made him his herald as a punishment for some unknown transgression or as a practical joke. In those instances when he can manage to unglue his eyes from a book or scroll, he speaks plain and to the purpose in the manner of a commander and a soldier. Apparently, drink makes him loquacious and philosophical._

_“That is the way the stories tell it,” he says, “but there is no record of any living Elves who have awakened at Cuiviénen. None whatsoever. Furthermore, awakening at Cuiviénen is not even in living memory. That is, no Elf alive has ever spoken to an Elf who has been alive since the Awakening. I think that the truth of the matter is…”_

_He explains, with barely contained enthusiasm, his thoughts about the development of life in Arda, how life itself is a single tree with many branches but the same root. Thranduil cannot quite follow his line of thought, but the entire monologue has something to do with his observations regarding the beaks of various species of birds._

_“So, this indicates that creatures did not simply spring out of the ground as they are now, but have changed over time. It is quite possible that we ourselves were not created out of nothing, but are the result of other life forms adapting to their habitat.“_

_Everyone is so engrossed in Lord Elrond’s theory that no one pays heed to the Man marching toward their little gathering. He snatches the young woman (still a child, really) sitting next to Lord Elrond by her arm. She yells. _The Elves and Dwarf spring to their feet, hands on their weapons. Elrond puts up a hand, and they stand at rest. The Men are strangely silent and passive.__

_“You little harlot!” he shouts, sending a solid slap to her face. The young woman screams again._

_“What were you doing!_ _What were you doing!” he screams._ _Everyone gawks, shocked at what they witness._

_“Nothing, Daddy, I swear!”  
_

_“Did he touch you! Did he touch you!”  
_

_“No!”  
_

_The Man slaps her again. “Liar! Why are you here, hm? Why are you here?”_

_Soldiers who have faced hordes of Orcs and evil Men stare in mute horror at the scene. Though it is known among Elves that some Men–many Men–strike their wives and children, to see it is frankly shocking._

_“Sir, you must be calm. She has done no wrong.”_

_The Man rounds on Lord Elrond._

_“You! Stay away from her! Do you understand?”_

_“Daddy, please–”  
_

_The girl (How was it not apparent sooner how young she is?) makes the mistake of tugging on the Man’s arm.The Man throws a punch into the girl’s face, sending her to the ground._

_Elrond says not a word. He merely steps toward the Man and_ _socks him in that tender spot just below the sternum. The Man collapses in a heap of flesh. He’s unconscious. Elrond helps the girl to her feet, sits her back in her spot, and continues speaking._

_“As I was saying, what if Men, Elves, and Dwarves share a common ancestor from farther back in our lineage than we can possibly imagine?”_

–sends the man flat on his back. He staggers to his feet, gasping for air.

“Stay down,” commands Elrond. He stays down.

“Wendell–”

“I ain’t telling you shit!”

“Where is Fred?” asks Elrond. His voice is hard, cold, perfectly even. Mechanical. Yet, his eyes gleam with fell light. An inky cloud of foreboding blossoms within Thranduil. For the first time, he is unsure of what Elrond (safe, sane,  _boring_  Elrond) will do, and it terrifies him.

“Fuck you!” shouts Wendell. He swipes the knife at the back of Elrond’s knee. Elrond lifts his leg and brings his foot down on his elbow. There is an ugly snap as Wendell screams. Yellow gristle and white bone poke out of Wendell’s red flesh.

Wendell talks. He weaves a tale of power amassed in the shadows fed by an ever-spreading web of fear, corruption, misery, and murder. Each thing Wendell says is more sickening than the last. He has no idea how fortunate he is that Thranduil did not bring a gun with him. Then again, the more he thinks of it, the more he likes the idea of putting two bullets into Wendell’s head. The world would be rid of one more piece of filth, and Charlie would appreciate the extra gold coin.

Elrond’s face reveals no emotion.

“Arrrrggh! Goddammit! He’s picking up a package at Inferno. Friday night at midnight! That’s all I know! Jesus Christ, my arm! What the fuck did you do to my arm?”

His throat is screaming for a drink when he returns to the motel. The bodies are gone. At least one thing turns out as expected. Without even thinking about it, he has a glass sitting on the beside table and is twisting the cap off Herradura and pours. Its scent is thick and sweet. He tastes the liquid gold even before the glass comes to his mouth. He licks his lips as the alcohol burns down his throat.

“Would you like a drink, Elrond?”

Elrond stands silently in the middle of the room. If Thranduil didn’t know him, he would think he’s another lost ghost inhabiting this place.

"I am fine.”

“Suit yourself,” says Thranduil. He pours another drink and swallows it in a single gulp. He drinks another glass. And another. He crouches by the bed and slides out a sleek, silver suitcase stashed under the bed. The suitcase clicks open, revealing a rifle, scope, two pistols, a couple of suppressors, and a few clips of ammunition–all tools of his trade.

Thranduil screws a suppressor on the end of the Beretta and hands it grip-first to Elrond. Then he shows him how to use it. It takes fifteen minutes for Elrond to learn the basics of how to load, unload, draw, aim, and fire. 

_(“I do not aim with my hand; he who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I aim with my eye.  
_

_I do not shoot with my hand; he who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I shoot with my mind.”)_

Elrond is eerily comfortable with the gun, as though he has been a

(gunslinger)

sharpshooter his entire life.

He cannot assist Elrond more than this. A stipulation of employment in his line of work is that he only kills in the line of duty. The last problem the U.S. government will tolerate is a rogue assassin with a vendetta. Finally, and most importantly, it would not be fair to Tien. She knows about his “adventures” (as she calls his assignments), and she has been remarkably understanding. She may not be so understanding, and rightfully so, if he makes himself a target and brings danger to her doorstep.

They exchange no words aside from those that are strictly necessary to provide the proper instruction in the care and handling of the pistol. There are some experiences, some feelings, for which words alone are too small, too thin, to express, and only deeds can say what needs to be said. Each time the empty gun clicks, he wonders if Elrond is imagining the bullet going straight into the center of Fred’s forehead.

_(“I do not kill with my gun; he who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. I kill with my heart.”)_

He watches Elrond practice drawing, aiming, and shooting all night, until the soft midnight sky becomes the first light of a red dawn.

 

Embraced by the shadows on the other side of the street, Elrond watches the front door of the brick building with the word  _Inferno_  emblazoned on its front wall in large, scarlet letters. From inside a deep, rhythmic thumping of a style of music Nichelle called– _calls_ –techno pounds against his chest and eardrums. If it is this loud all the way across the street, it will be unbearable once he is inside. He is grateful for Thranduil lending him these devices called earplugs.

Throngs of people in their fashionable attire wait for the guard at the front door to admit them into the building. A large black car–Nichelle calls it an SUV–pulls up next to the curb. The doors open, and two people exit, opening a door for a third.

Fred exits the car. With his shaved head and brown suit he bears a strong likeness to a bronze statue imbued with the power of movement. Elrond’s hand inches toward the pistol holstered beneath his jacket.

_“You look good,” says Nichelle, her eyes flicking up and down him._

_“I do?” he asks. He swells with pride at her favorable appraisal of his attire. He owes much to the internet for helping him select and arrange these garments._

_“Red suits you,” she says, smiling at him. From that day onward, he tries to include something red in every outfit he wears when he meets her._

When Fred approaches Inferno, the guard allows him and his two cohorts inside while all the other people stand and wait. Elrond puts the earplugs into his ears and crosses the street. The guard, who was of a size comparable to Boromir but lacking the son of Denethor’s noble bearing, looks at him with clinical suspicion.

“VIPs and guests only,” he says.

The guard’s mind is an open book. Within it, he gleans the image of a young child with straw-blond hair and a sense of deep loss.

_Come back and see daddy soon, OK, Ryan?_

_OK, Daddy._

_Gimme a hug. You’re getting so big!_

_Bye, Daddy._

“For Ryan’s education,”says Elrond. He retrieves the folded currency from his pocket and extends it toward Paul as though about to shake his hand. The guard gingerly takes the money and nods Elrond inside.

Even with the ear plugs properly applied, the music hammers against Elrond’s chest and ears. He climbs the dark stairwell leading to a black door where there stands a bored guard. He opens the door, and Elrond steps into a lounge. In a different frame of mind, Elrond may be capable of evaluating the aesthetic, but his consciousness has collapsed upon itself into an infinitely dense, singular thought: find Fred.

The people and objects within the VIP lounge are no longer distinct beings or items but shapes and colors without substance or essence. He sees purple, flat, Not Fred, black, table, bottle, Not Fred, tray, door, sofa, and stairs.

Elrond enters a threshold at the rear of the lounge. At the top of another flight of stairs, another guard stands watch, eyes hidden behind a pair of dark glasses. Elrond climbs the stairs.

“No admittance,” says the guard. Elrond continues walking.

“That’s far enough,” says the guard. Elrond ignores him.

As if trapped in molasses, the guard reaches for his radio to call for assistance. Elrond dips his hand into his pocket, retrieves the ring of keys, and hurls them straight at the guard’s philtrum. The keys’ jagged edges draw blood. The guard yelps and drops the radio. Elrond dashes up the stairs two at a time, slugging the guard in the temple. The guard drops like a sack of potatoes.

Elrond pats him down, searching for weapons. He removes and unloads the pistol strapped to his waist as well as the revolver holstered at his ankle. He slips the small revolver into his pocket and puts the guard’s pistol around his waist.

Taking one of the ear plugs out, he listens at the door. It’s hard to hear with the music blaring, but he can make out four different voices, not counting the ones who may be present but remain silent. Some kind of machine shuffles what sounds like several stacks of paper.

“…four sixty, four seventy, four eighty…”

“…see the game last night?”

“…four ninety, five hundred.”

“…inspect the product?”

“…it’s good.”

“…ready next week.”

“…doing business with you.”

Elrond puts the ear plug back into his ear and waits. When they emerge from the room, they will have to come out single-file, making them much easier to handle. He draws the gun Thranduil loaned him.

The door opens. Three people stand there, ready to exit, but find the barrel of Elrond’s pistol pointed at them.

“Shit!”

“Jesus!”

They put their hands up and back away as he enters the room.

“Take your money and go,” he says. They waste no time making a swift exit, briefcase full of money in hand. Elrond gestures for Fred’s two underlings to leave as well. They beat a hasty retreat. Fred attempts to rise from his seat.

“Not you,” says Elrond. Fred sits down again. Elrond closes and locks the door, keeping Fred in his sights. It once puzzled him that mortals prefer to use such a loud, messy, unseemly weapon. Now, with Fred’s life in his hands, he begins to understand. It’s because it’s so easy. Just point and pull, and it’s over.

“You must be the one Wendell told Twitch about,” says Fred with his deep, rumbling voice.

“You’d best kill me, or you ain’t gonna make it to tomorrow.”

O, how dearly he wants to! How strong the urge to pull the trigger and end him. His beloved, once overflowing with the vigor of life, now breathes, eats, and shits through tubes because of him. And he is right before him, straight ahead at point blank range.

 _Don’t snap the trigger_ , Thranduil said,  _Squeeze. Like this. Now try again._

He aims dead center between Fred’s brows. If he fires, Fred will most certainly die.

But what would Nichelle think of him if she awakens– _when_  she awakens–and discovers that he has killed an unarmed man? Would she see him as an agent of justice or as a monster who kills without remorse? Which of them would be true?

_Don’t snap the trigger. Squeeze. Like this._

Of course, he could do it and never speak of it, never utter a word to Nichelle or anyone else about Fred’s fate. If he could keep Vilya secret from all save the Wise, he can keep killing Fred from her. But could he be content with her, or with himself, knowing he has done such a thing?

From deep within, his heart whispers,  _Yes. I could._

He takes aim, puts his finger on the trigger. There is no music, no grunts or yelps of pain, no sound at all. Only his own deep breaths and slow, steady heartbeat.

_Don’t snap the trigger. Squeeze. Like this._

No, this is wrong. Though Fred be wicked, though the world be a gladder place without him, though his thirst for vengeance be satisfied, he must not slay him in so dishonorable a way.

Upon Fred’s face, there is an expression of…not resignation, exactly, for there is no undercurrent of sorrow beneath it. Nor is there a peaceful acceptance of death’s inevitability. Rather, Fred seems as though he realized long ago that this is how he expects to die, and he is utterly indifferent to it. The lightest brush against Fred’s mind confirms that this is true.

Again comes that strange impression of familiarity, as it were a memory.

He imagines–no,  _remembers_ –sending a bullet into Fred’s head and two into his chest, and as he looks, he sees the dead and living versions of Fred simultaneously. Just as he can now see Fred sitting at the desk, watching him with unblinking eyes, he can also see two roses blossoming red on his cream-colored shirt and a hole in his head behind which is a red burst of skull and brain tissue splattered upon the tinted window behind him.

How is he seeing this? What does it mean? Time expands, stretching like a rubber band until it is so thin that each second feels as though it passes through an Age. In those seconds that seem to last forever, Elrond thinks and thinks and thinks until he thinks a hole into the soil of his heart.

From the depths, he hears a sound–nay, a song.

 _Commala-come-come_  
Come-come-commala  
Tra-la-lalala  
In the Valley ha-ha! 

The song fuels him, pulls him toward it. He delves toward it, deeper, deeper, until he reaches the boundary of the unfathomable reality. It reminds him of a line from a poem from Nichelle’s world:  _Abandon all hope, ye who enter here_.

Hope has been abandoned long ago. He enters…

…and stands upon the deck of the ship bearing the Ringbearers to the West.

What a strange dream. He was trapped in a world unrecognizable. A world with no trees whose air and water were clogged with poison, and Men were greedier, pettier, and more hateful than he could imagine. Was this the future of Middle-earth?

Beneath the soul-deep weariness of the world, there is doubt. Has he left too soon? Was there more he could do? Were there others he should have saved? Glancing at his father’s star coasting across the heavens, Elrond silently asks if he has made the right choice. But, as always, no answer comes.

Above, voices murmur from somewhere among the stars–nay, from the stars themselves. When he listens closely, he hears a song, or a memory of a song, being sung with soft, bright voices.

 _Commala-come-come_  
Come-come-commala  
Tra-la-lalala  
In the Valley-ha!

Those voices…that song…they sound like

(Celebrían’s)

(Nichelle’s)

hers.

Elrond feels the star-song tug at his spirit, drawing him toward it as a hooked line draws a fish from the water. Just like the unfortunate fish, when Elrond takes the bait, he realizes too late what it means…

Then, right at the moment he understands, time snaps back into its normal flow, and he never left the upper room of Inferno, and he had never seen a Fred that is both dead and alive simultaneously. To Elrond, nothing out of the ordinary has happened at all, and he chalks it up to the mysterious inner workings of the mind that, as he looks at Fred, he thinks of a 

(tower)

edifice made of an alien material darker than black.

He knows not why, but it stirs within him an overpowering dread that sets his stomach churning, the first time he has felt the least bit nauseous in over three thousand years (the previous incident being working up the nerve to tell Celebrían his feelings for her). He bolts out of the room, down the stairs, and out of Inferno. His  _fae’s_  mastery of his  _rhond_  hanging by a thread, he makes it to a discreet corner before ejecting all the contents of his stomach until he heaves naught but bile and then air.

 

Ramirez sips the steaming cup of pitch black coffee. The doctor says he needs to cut way down, so it’s decaf until things get back to his normal slightly elevated blood pressure. Not that he’ll tell Dr. Whatshisname that.

The good news is that, now that his circadian rhythm is calibrated to a nocturnal schedule, he doesn’t need a steaming cup from Speedway or a Red Bull to stay up all night anymore. (Mornings are a different story.) The coffee is more for warmth than wakefulness these days. It’s starting to get cold even for Michigan. There have been a few days when he’s gone to work in sleet or a snow flurry, but these pass as quickly as they come. That’s likely to change as November passes into December, and winter gets serious. It’s gonna be cold as the ninth layer of hell when January gets here.

He’s also found a better way to pass the time than doing paperwork between distress calls: looking over old cases.

It happens almost by accident. Blake asks for the file for some open-and-shut convenience store robbery for the D.A., so Ramirez shows him, but he finds a case stashed among the hard copies of the files. It’s the one about the Nite Owl, that fire that killed four people on Devil’s Night some twelve years ago. At first, he thinks nothing of it, chalks it up to human error, but he finds another misfiled case, and another, all related to fires on Devil’s Night going back at least fifteen years.

Someone’s obviously doing this on purpose, but why? What are they trying to cover up? Who’s making them do it?

So here he is, staring at the words CASE CLOSED in big, bold letters on the Thrifty Stylez case. He flips past the pictures–one of a burnt-up skeleton of a building and another of Miss Washington’s gruesome injuries (he cringes as he imagines someone doing the same to Sara)–and goes straight to the eyewitness testimony. There is none, but this doesn’t surprise him. What does surprise him is the lack of follow-up on Ordell Roberts’ testimony.

Roberts mentions at least three other accomplices, and of those three he names one, a pyromaniac nicknamed Twitch. According to the report, Roberts also asks to be put on Witness Protection before naming the other two. This request was denied, so he never names the other two people present at the time of the arson at Thrifty Stylez. Who were the other two accomplices? What is Roberts so afraid of that he’d rather risk a longer sentence than give up their names?

Ramirez frowns. He’s got more questions than answers about the missing files and the holes in the Thrifty Stylez case, but he knows one thing: this case has got the whiff of fish guts all over it. The only question that matters now is: what should he do?

In his first couple of years at this job, when he had more ambition and self-righteousness than sense (kind of like Blake, which is partially why he’s so protective of the kid), he’d be all over this chance to prove himself worthy of his badge. But ever since Sara came screaming into the world, he no longer has the right to think only about himself and his job.

But what if this goes deeper and higher up than he thought? What if he ruffles the feathers of the wrong kind of bird? This…whatever it is might follow him home and try to do something to his family while he can’t be there to protect them. And if that happens, he’ll eat the barrel of his sidearm.

What if she were in his shoes? What would he say if she became a cop just like him and saw the same thing he’s seeing now?

_You know what you’d say, old man. You’d tell her to keep her head down and her mouth shut. You’d say, “The goody two-shoes act isn’t worth your job or your life.”  
_

Is that the kind of person he wanted Sara to grow up to be? The kind who knows something isn’t right then turns a blind eye to it?

_Sara brings him for Show And Tell. Her tiny arms drag him to the front of the class. His freshly dry-cleaned and pressed uniform is so starched that he can barely move in it, but it’s worth the discomfort of looking sharp when she tells the class all about him._

_“This is my daddy. He’s a police officer,” she says, beaming with pride. “He catches bad guy and puts them away.”_

_He makes a silent vow to himself to be the kind of cop his baby girl would be proud to call dad._

That right there tells him exactly what he needs to do. He has to figure out what’s going on, and whoever’s involved, be they cop or criminal, is gonna have to face the law.

Who can he trust? The captain? He may be in on it, or willfully ignoring it. Blake? For all Ramirez knows, Blake could be part of it too. Unlikely, but until Ramirez is sure, he’ll play this close to the vest. Who else is there?

 

The most amusing thing about hearing people, according to Doris, is that they think that because she’s deaf, she’s not listening. Most of the time, as soon as they see her hands make signs, they leave her be and go about their business as if she’s not there. The plus side is that nobody bothers her while she stays beside grandpapa’s bed even past normal visiting hours.

What they don’t know is that she can read lips just fine. She can tell that, despite what the doctor told the family of the patient in room 237, that patient isn’t going to make it through the night. She knows that the well-dressed woman in the parking lot is asking pointed questions about her mother’s life insurance policy. She understands, even though the hearing people bent over his bed cannot, that the pale, shriveled man in the ICU is whispering, “Don’t let him kill me.”

It’s also how she can tell that the gorgeous white guy who visits the comatose lady Doris mentally calls Sleeping Beauty is more than he seems. He would often sit by her bed softly chanting for hours, and though she can’t hear it, she feels it flowing through her like water. The language he speaks isn’t one she knows, though she can only identify English, Spanish, and only as much Chinese as can be found on a take-out menu. He speaks it with the gentle rise and fall of a language meant to be written in sweeping calligraphic curves. She senses sorrow, guilt, despair, and growing anger.

One day, a plainclothes cop comes by and introduces himself as Detective Sergeant Ramirez of Detroit PD. Doris almost bursts out laughing when the cop calls Sleeping Beauty’s visitor Elrond. Poor guy. Kids must have given him hell when he was coming up, especially around that age when they’re old enough to read  _The Hobbit_ or  _Lord of the Rings_. She shouldn’t laugh at him, she really shouldn’t, but his parents must have been high on pipe weed (or something stronger) to give him a name like that.

“Do you remember me?” asks Ramirez.

“I remember,” says Elrond. He does have a certain ethereal quality, now that Doris thinks about it.

“Your English is pretty good for someone who didn’t know a word a year ago.”

“I applied myself to the task, Sergeant.”

“Uh, how have you been?”

“I do not wish to be rude, but if there is something particular you need of me, I would rather you ask forthwith.”

“I need to talk to you about the arson at Thrifty Stylez and what happened to this young lady here.”

Doris watches Elrond lead Ramirez out of the ICU.

 

The stars shine bright in the clear night sky. It would be beautiful if November’s death-chill wasn’t lingering beneath he crisp autumn wind. If you squint your eyes just so, the trees lining the parking lot spell C-H-A-S-S-I-T.

As Ramirez walks toward the beat-up Toyota that’s been his companion for the past twelve years, the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight up. He turns quickly–

and Elrond isn’t there. What the–? Did he just imagine talking to him less than a minute ago? It’s not entirely out of the question. Didn’t he say this job would drive him crazy? At least that would explain why he and Blake saw different things looking at the mugshot.

“Is there something you wanted to discuss, Sergeant?”

Ramirez flinches hard. There’s Elrond, standing right behind him, still as a statue save for a gentle breeze blowing through his hair. How did he–

“Shit! How did you do that?”

“I imagine you had something of greater import to discuss than the mechanics of placing one foot in front of the other.”

“Right,” says Ramirez, gathering his thoughts, “It’s about what happened to your, uh, lady friend. I found the case misfiled at the precinct. Sometimes mistakes happen, I get that, but there were eighteen similar cases that have also been misfiled.”

Elrond stands there, utterly still. Ramirez things that not even a statue can be so still because a statue is made up of atoms with electrons buzzing around it. It takes Ramirez all his nerve not to squirm beneath Elrond’s blank, unblinking gaze.

“So, uh, in a nutshell, someone at the precinct is trying to keep these cases covered up.”

Even without moving a single muscle on his face, Elrond gives him a look that asks what the hell Ramirez wants with him.

“When I read Ordell’s statement, I figured we’d…be on the same side.”

“What side is that, Sergeant?”

“Getting the bastards who did this.”

For a long minute, Elrond is completely silent.

“What did you have in mind for me to do?”

Ramirez shakes his head, “It’s best if I don’t know. I’m just saying that if you come across something it would be…interesting for the police, get in touch with me before you talk to any other cops. At least until I know who the bad apples are and who they’re working for.”

“I see. Good evening, Sergeant.”

“Hey, what do you know about–”

Elrond is gone again. How the hell does he do that?

 

The clouds covering the night sky sag with precipitation. Hidden within the shadows spewed by the rotten heart of the city, evil men forge secret plans. Elrond feels the misery and desperation their avarice brings, choking what little light and goodness this city and its people have left. Those who have status and prestige dwell in tall palaces of stone and glass while others sleep among the vermin on the streets. Those who have strength and cunning use them to prey on those who have not the ability to resist.

He often wonders how Nichelle can harbor any love for this dark, filthy place. She belongs in a home beneath trees and sunlight, a place nourished by clean, blue water. She deserves neighbors who would greet her with smiles and warm wishes for her good health.

(And for what purpose was he brought to this world to begin with? To love and lose, again, as always?)

His hand slips into his pocket, and he feels the cool, familiar weight of the iPod Nichelle bought him. It was not a gift for any particular occasion, but only because she wants to share this piece of her world with him. How stunned he was to discover that this tiny thing can hold thousands of songs, each within reach of his fingertips! Now, this inanimate object is the most lively thing about her. Then, at the moment when he had his chance to make right the wrong done to her, he failed.

He should refrain from handling anything from her, be it gift or no, but this pocket-sized machine is all he has to be close to her. Crumpled beneath it is a pair of ear buds, which Elrond puts on and plugs into the device. He scrolls through the settings and chooses the random play option.

The opening chords of the bass thrums into his ears in time with the wailing, mournful guitar. It matches his somber mood. The screen of the iPod identifies the song as “Shadowplay” by a group called Joy Division. In a less melancholy mood, he may marvel at how the simple songs of Men manage to capture and distill the essence of how he feels. He searches for more songs by this group, and he finds it under the label “Post-Punk,” which he considers asking Nichelle about. His spirits sink as he recalls that he may never have the opportunity to.

He walks, slowly at first, then briskly, and his brisk walk eases into a run that has each step striking the pavement with each beat of the drum.

 

If you are an owl seeking to make a snack of a bird or mouse, you coast on a gentle wind blowing in from the river, bringing with it the scent of fresh rain, and toward a certain office building in downtown Detroit. As you draw near, your sharp ears pick up the fluttering hearts and steady breaths of a row of pigeons sleeping on its ledge. Silent as a ghost, you land upon one of their number with talons outstretched, grab its neck. A quick twist of your head kills the pigeon instantly. The others take off in blind panic. It doesn’t matter now. This will keep your belly full until the night comes again.

If you are an owl tearing flesh from your prey on the ledge of a building, your keen hearing detects the presence of four humans mere feet behind the glass in front of which the pigeons were perching. The glass does little to muffle the raised voice of one of the humans, a smallish one by the lightness of its steps compared to others of its kind. It paces the room, its gait almost like a magpie’s. The other human is a  _very_ large one whose size and mass creaks the chair it sits in.

If you were an owl with the ability to understand human speech, you may hear something like this…

“…already behind schedule, and no one is doing any business all because of one man?! How exactly can we earn income if no one is moving product?! Do you even know who the fuck this guy is?”

“He’s nobody,” says the deep, rumbling voice of the large human.

“Sure he’s not a cop or a DEA agent or something else waiting for us–I mean, you–to fuck up?”

“He ain’t a cop.”

“How the fuck do you know that, Einstein?”

“We ain’t having this conversation in a jail cell.”

“Does he know about our arrangement?”

“Doubt it.”

“Who’s he working for? The mob, the cartels?”

“No. He ain’t touch the product or the money.”

“So you’re saying some random guy, out of the fucking blue, just up and decided to hold up a deal at gunpoint and not take the cash or the product? Fuck outta here! You listen here, you big, dumb fuck! I want him taken care of  _tonight_. If you don’t clean up this mess–”

The smallish human suddenly gasps for air. If you are an owl who can see clearly even on the darkest nights, you notice the large human clasp one of its huge hands around the smaller human’s neck and lifts him to eye level. The smaller human chokes and struggles in the large human’s grasp as its feet dangle helplessly.

“You ain’t my boss. You don’t give me orders,” says the large human, the threat obvious despite his even tone. He throws the smaller human into the wall. The impact sends dust floating down from the ceiling. The other human coughs, scrambling to his feet.

“I’ll deal with it,” says the large human. Coughing, the smaller human leaves. The large human crosses the room. The chair groans as he sits again.

If you are an owl with strong survival instincts, you choose this moment (before the large human discovers you here) to take off in silent flight, gliding silent as a ghost through the night.


	7. Chapter 7

Twinkie’s always believed that city is a living thing. Buildings and people are its cells and organs, sewers and streets its veins and nerves. If you keep your eyes open and your ear to the ground, you can take its pulse and know exactly what’s going on even when nobody tells you a thing.

Motown feels so anxious. People eye each other more warily than usual as they pass one another on the sidewalk. Stray dogs dart away from humans they normally stroll past. Even the weather seems to hold its breath as if waiting for somebody to start some shit. There’s an edginess to the city that makes Twinkie glad she’s wearing jeans and tennis shoes while she runs her errands today.

The trans sisters must sense Detroit’s weird mood too because only a couple of people showed up at TRANSitions today. Maggie’s absent too, and she’s  _always_  there even when she’s sick as a dog.

She gets home as day melts into a soupy pink-orange dusk. Hungry as hell and not even close to feeling like cooking, she fishes one of the menus from the kitchen drawer and settles on Tasty Thai. Shrimp pad thai is what she usually gets, but tonight her taste buds want something different. Maybe come kind of curry. She finally narrows her choices down to chicken masaman curry and chicken panang curry when the doorbell rings.

Twinkie peeks through the peephole. Two cops in uniform stand on her porch. She’s got half a mind to let ‘em stand there all night, but she’s too hungry and too tired to make things harder for them right now. She opens the door, eyes zipping right to the name tags reading Sands and Burke. They look at her like she’s the one trespassing.

“Can I help you?”

“Good evening, ma’am,” says the buff-looking one with the buzz cut named Burke, “we’re looking for a suspect in several assaults that have taken place recently. Do you know this man?”

Burke hands her a picture. It’s Elrond’s mugshot. In different circumstances, that bewildered wince caught on camera would be funny as hell. But two cops with guns too close to their itchy trigger fingers put a damper on the humor.

“Um…don’t I get a lawyer or something?”

“Just answer the question,” says Sands. Despite her slight frame, there’s an edge to her voice that makes the threat of arrest (or worse) clear. See, shit like this is why Twinkie can’t stand cops.

“I ain’t gotta answer a  _got_ -damn-thing. I have rights. So you can get a warrant, or you can step off.”

The triumph of stunning two white cops into silence fades as soon as their hands smoothly reach for their sidearms.

“Ma’am, I think it would be best for you to come with us,” says Burke.

They cuff her and shove her in the back of the police car. She watches the city pass in a blur of street lights and tries to ignore the soreness in her wrists. She keeps quiet, but in her mind she’s cussing up a storm. Fuck them two pigs. Fuck the entire Detroit PD. Fuck all them cops and their mamas too.

She’s got her Fuck The Police speech already worked out in her head when the car turns onto the street where the precinct is. Her irritation and annoyance are at their peak as the police station comes into view…

…then they fizzle and become confusion and alarm as the car drives right past it.

“What the hell is going on? Where y’all going?”

The only reply is the steady hum of the engine while the car cruises down the street. A cold, hard knot sinks into Twinkie’s gut. Where are they taking her? What are they gonna do to her? Is she gonna wind up as yet another dead trans woman of color found in a dumpster or by the river? She forces herself to breathe slow and even to stop herself from shaking.

The car parallel parks next to a building that dwarfs the others on the street. A tall, chain-link fence encloses the building and the courtyard in its oppressive, stainless steel embrace. The headlights shine on a faded sign that reads Walton Tenement Complex. Near the bottom of the sign, an artist with a good eye for color and line has spray-painted AKA HELL in stylized flames.

“Watch her. I’ll be right back,” says Burke. He gets out the car and disappears into the shadows in front of the building. After what feels like a couple of minutes, Burke comes back, and Sands hauls Twinkie out the car and toward the ominous remains of Walton Tenement Complex.

It’s gray inside. Not gray as in painted gray, but gray as if all the color and vitality evaporated, leaving behind this specter of a building. A sheen of dirt, dust, and mold spreads across the floor and the walls. As the cops lead Twinkie toward a rickety elevator, a chunk of ceiling drops and shatters onto the floor.

Sands mashes the button. The elevator chugs along the shaft. The doors creak open, and the cops lead Twinkie inside. Burke taps the button for the top floor. The doors close with the metallic clang of a jail cell. The car lurches up so slow that Twinkie wonders if she’d be better off walking. It gives her plenty of time to read the graffiti scrawled on the sides of the elevator.

> _tamara suck dick 313-555-6021  
> _
> 
> _< –It’s true she swallowed my cum right here._
> 
> _Reagan can kiss my ass._
> 
> _(Bush too!)_
> 
> __Fuck da police!!!_ _
> 
> __Bitches Ain’t Shit_ _
> 
> _GET HIGH BEEP RAJI 313-555-9476_

Then she sees red-brown 

(blood)

droplets speckled on the wall, and she has to remind herself to keep breathing.

  
The prisoner pants beneath the duct tape placed on his mouth. Two dead bodies lie on the floor, heads pulverized by the bloody hammer in Fred’s hand. The prisoner trembles, liquid warmth streaming from his bladder into his pants as Fred advances toward him.

There is pain and bursts of white as hammer slams into his skull…again…and again…and again.

 

The elevator dings when it finally reaches its destination. The doors squeak apart. Twinkie yelps at the grisly scene straight out of some dark fairy tale.

A huge

(giant)

(wolf)

man in a three-piece suit wipes his bloody hands with a white handkerchief, staining it red. He towers over three

(little pigs)

(wives)

dead bodies that have their heads bashed to smithereens. Two guards stand against the wall, still and silent as statues. Twinkie tries to run, but she doesn’t get far before Burke and Sands grab her and haul her toward huge, bald-headed Black man wiping a hammer clean of blood and bits of skull and hair.

“Have a seat,” he says. Burke and Sands shove her into the nearest chair. Her peripheral vision catches sight of the two cops moving toward the large man. Her heartbeat pounds against her ears, drowning all the sound.

Twinkie doesn’t want to look, but the corpses less than two feet away, and she can’t help it. She’s seen a dead body at a funeral home, but that’s after rigor mortis and formaldehyde have taken root. Unlike the carefully preened and prepped bodies at a mortuary, these loll on the floor like life-sized dolls carelessly tossed on their backs, their faces, or their sides. A pearly tooth sits near her toe. She inches her foot away.

The body next to her absorbs all her focus. It stares up at her, eyes wide open, its mouth frozen in a toothless “O.” Only moments ago, this used to be a living, breathing person. Now it’s a hunk of rotting meat. Will this be her a few minutes from now?

She glances around, but now, instead of three bodies, there are four, and the fourth– _what the fuck!_

Her own corpse lies on the floor. It’s eyes are closed. Blood leaks out of a handful of holes in the torso. An ear and several fingers are missing. She shudders at how solid it looks. If she bends down to touch it (and there’s no way in hell she’s gonna do that) will she feel her own cool, rigid flesh?

What creeps her out, though, is how familiar it is. Somehow, she remembers how being shot felt like being hit in the chest by a red-hot sledgehammer. She remembers jagged pain where her fingers and ear used to be. If she keeps looking, she’s gonna throw up, but at the same time, she can’t look away.

Twinkie tears her eyes off the body when she hears a deep voice calling her by her government name. She glances at where her corpse was, but the only thing there is a spot of dull gray floor with red oozing across it from the dead bodies lying nearby.

“Are you gonna kill me?” she asks.

“If your boy make me,” he says. His rumbling voice touches a primal part of her brain that still fears the fangs and claws of lions and leopards. She hopes Elrond’s on his way to get her outta this.

 

The moment Elrond walks into the Intensive Care Unit to visit Nichelle, he sees the envelope and knows something has gone wrong. His name is written on its surface in huge, curved letters. It contains an index card and a gold hoop earring. A gold hoop earring that belongs to Lady Twinkie.

He plucks out the index card and reads four words scrawled across it:  _Walton Tenement Complex. Tonight._

It’s a trap, that much is certain. Abducting Twinkie is meant to evoke powerful emotions and force him to do something rash. This cannot be simple retribution. If the aim were simply to be rid of a nuisance, a little patience and good timing could have accomplished that. Nay, this is Fred sending a message about the power he has–power that the events at Inferno has threatened.

It’s all clear now. Fred’s power lies in his seeming invincibility. When Elrond refused to kill him at Inferno (and the less he thinks about that, the better), he showed the world that Fred was not a god or a monster, but just a Man.

Elrond crumples the envelope into a tight ball. If Fred wishes to find him tonight, he will, and he will not live to regret it.

 

The Walton is cursed.

Before the white man came with ships and guns, the grounds where the Walton Tenement Complex now stands were once believed to be cursed. Anything living that spent too much time in that place was tormented by horrible visions. Most came back utterly incoherent, muttering about the darkness between spaces and the things that live there.

Anything buried there came back…wrong.

A Potawatomi legend tells the story of a woman named Watseka whose son Ogima was killed by a bear. In her grief, and despite the warnings of her neighbors, Watseka brought the body of her son to the cursed grounds and buried him there.

(Was she the first? The first to ever try it? Unlikely.)

She waited and mourned. Then he came back.

Things were fine at first. The woman was happy; she had her son with her again, alive and

(not quite)

whole. He was slower and clumsier than before, and he always had the stench of the grave about him, but a mother loves her child no matter what. She fed him, clothed him, and cleaned him just as she had when he was an infant. Her baby was home, and that’s all that mattered.

That changed when Ogima started to speak.

For when the words came out of his mouth, all knew that whatever came back from that sour ground wasn’t Ogima. He knew things, terrible things, about everyone in the village, things no human witness would know, and he took fiendish delight in sharing them with all who had ears to hear. When he spoke, his voice was no longer human. It was cold and deep like soil where the dead lie. His words scraped against each other like bone against bone, and he aimed them at those they would hurt most.

(”No one cares what you have to say, old man. Everyone knows you’re a fool, and they laugh behind your back.”)

(”Your children hate you and are waiting for you to die”)

(”Do you know what horrors await you after you pass from this world?”)

Then several dogs in the village went missing. After that, a child who had a tendency to wander disappeared. Some stories say that Ogima ate them. Others say that Ogima lured them to the cursed ground, and that evil spirits carried them to the land of the dead.

The villagers who had powerful medicine attempted several healing ceremonies, but the evil spirit would not depart.

From there, the legends vary on what happened next. In one version of the story, the best hunters in the village burned Watseka’s hut with both Ogima and Watseka inside it. In another, the elders get those with the most powerful medicine to have a healing ceremony to banish the  _thing_  that inhabited Ogima’s body. Then there’s the one where Watseka, plagued by guilt, takes a large rock and hits Ogima in the head with it until he is dead again, but she is never the same afterward.

(“Sometimes, dead is better.”)

 

Sometime between the hours of two and three in the morning, night changes. Darkness grows thick, almost solid. Buildings and people seem thinner, less real. Strange things lurking between spaces peek out from the shadows. The city takes on a sinister, haunted quality that hangs on everyone and everything.

On nights like this, Blake wonders why he signed up for this shift. The B&E they’ve been called in to investigate isn’t the worst that’s happened during these odd hours, but Blake can’t quite shake the feeling of being sized up for something worse. Then he sees the way Sarge gets answers out of people without even trying, and he remembers that Sarge is the kind of cop he wants to be: the kind who protects and serves the people. It gives the station a good laugh to hear him say it, but it’s true.

”You’ll learn,” they say.

Lately, though, something weird’s been going on with Sarge. Every now and then, Blake catches him reading through old case files, and he pretends not to notice when Sarge sends furtive, suspicious glances his way. A couple of times, Blake asks him what he’s working on, but Sarge always shakes his head and says it’s nothing.

He doesn’t want to think it, but what if Sarge is up to something? What if he’s doing something wrong? No, that can’t be it. Sarge would never–or would he? He’s got a kid going to college in five or six years, and this job doesn’t pay anywhere near enough to cover that. If someone offered a few thousand dollars for a favor or two…

Blake sips from a steaming cup of too-sweet cappuccino, courtesy of 7-11 He’ll just have to keep his eyes open, then. He hopes he’s wrong, though. After questioning the witness about a break-in (all signs point to a couple of neighborhood teenagers looking for street cred), Sarge goes back to the car. As he slips into the passenger seat, Blake notices C-H-A-R spray-painted on a boarded-up store across the street. The black letters glare at him like a warning.

Sarge’s phone rings on the way back to the station. When he answers, Blake watches his face subtly change from relaxed to tense to angry. Whoever’s on the other end just delivered some really bad news. Sarge speeds up and hangs a fast right.

“Everything alright, Sarge?” he asks.

“No,” says Sarge, “There’s something I need to do. I’m taking you back to the station.”

“What? Why?”

Sarge stops at the red light and gives him a look that makes him feel like an ant under a microscope.

“Is there any reason why I shouldn’t trust you?” asks Sarge.

“I don’t understand.”

“I know somebody’s been moving the files. If it’s you, you better tell me. Because if I find out from somebody else, I will personally dedicate my life to turning your world to shit.”

How could Sarge say that? How could he–has Sarge  _ever_ trusted him? Was all this mentoring crap a cover for keeping an eye on him? Of all the–well, he can’t get mad at Sarge when he was wondering the same thing about him. If anyone deserves being pissed at, it’s those dirty cops.

“I have nothing to do with that,” says Blake. “Now that we both know neither of us is in on it, do you mind telling me what’s going on?”

The light turns green. Sarge stares at him a moment longer then hits the gas.

“I’ll explain on the way,” he says.

 

The Walton is alive.

(”Some places are like people: some shine, and some don’t.”)

Ever since the first stone of its foundation was laid into the ground, it has been plagued by accidents and violence. Take a trip to Detroit Public Library and dig around the archives, you’ll see.

Detroit City Voice. July 12, 1970:

> **Scaffolding Spill Kills Construction Crew  
> ** _DETROIT–A team of 19 construction workers at the construction site of the Walton Tenement Complex were killed when the scaffolding suddenly collapsed._

Great Lakes Paranormal Weekly. December 7, 1977:

> **Local psychic: Detroit tenement “a haven for paranormal activity.”**   
>  _Clairvoyant and Detroit native Samantha Greene tries to avoid Walton Tenement Complex if she can help it. According to Greene, the land upon which it stands “has gone sour.”_ _“There is a malevolent force that dwells there. I’m unsure whether it’s the cause of the terrible things that have happened or a result of it, but there’s something watching, waiting.”_

The D-Tribune. February 17, 1983:

> **Walton Complex Gunman Arrested  
> ** _DETROIT–Terrence Jackson, 38, has been arrested for the shooting at Walton Tenement Complex that resulted in 19 casualties, including Terrence’s wife and two daughters. In his statement, Terrence claimed that voices commanded him to slaughter all the Walton residents then turn the gun on himself. However, Detroit police arrived just in time to prevent further carnage._

Motown Inquirer. May 14, 1988:

> **DEA Raid Ends In Slaughter**   
>  _DETROIT–A raid on the Walton Tenement Complex carried out by the DEA ended with thirty-eight people dead, including twelve DEA special agents. Local authorities claim that a routine drug bust of a crack cocaine manufacturing lab became all-out war with the tenement’s residents._

Motor City Herald. October 9, 1992:

> **Cannibal Roams Streets Of Detroit**   
>  _DETROIT–Police discovered the half-eaten remains of an unidentified man at Walton Tenement Complex. Police were sent to the apartment after neighbors complained about a stench coming from inside. The killer remains at large._

Detroit City Voice. March 16, 1995

> **Walton Rennovation Plans On Permanent Hiatus**   
>  _Detroit–7 months after purchasing the Walton Tenement Complex for $50 million, David Yeung announced that his company, Metro Realtors, placed plans to renovate the building on permanent hiatus._
> 
> _Yeung’s announcement comes on the heels of an avalanche of incidents resulting in injury or death._

The 313 411. June 13, 1997.

> **Feral Dogs Slay Local Resident  
> ** _Simon Hernandez, 29, was killed yesterday when he was attacked by five feral dogs roaming the area near Walton Tenement Complex. According to eyewitnesses, Hernandez was walking to the convenience store when five wild dogs came onto the street and began chasing him. When he was overcome, the dogs attacked, inflicting multiple injuries._
> 
> _The animals remain at large._

Detroit Free Press. September 11, 1998.

> **Double Suicide At Abandoned Apartment Building  
> ** _Brian McGavin, 18, and Rose Warner, 17, were found dead in a room in the apartment building formerly known as Walton Tenement Complex The autopsy report for both adolescents indicate that the cause of death was self-inflicted poisoning._
> 
> _McGavin and Warner had been dating at the time of their deaths. Notes and letters passed between the two suggest that they had formed a suicide pact._

Detroit News. October 30, 2017:

> **Arsonist Sets Fire To Walton Tenement Complex  
> ** _Five people are dead and fourteen injured due to a fire that erupted on the first floor of Walton Tenement Complex, an apartment building presumed vacant since 1996. Firefighters claim that evidence suggests that the fire is likely the result of arson._

 

Ramirez pulls up to the Walton seven-and-a-half minutes after Elrond calls him. He peers up the Walton’s nineteen floors, and a sense of deep wrongness overcomes him. He has half a mind to turn this car around and go straight to the station and stay there. From the look of discomfort twisting his face, Blake must be thinking the same thing.

Ramirez whips his head around when someone calls his name. Elrond emerges from the darkness. There’s a faint glow about him, as if his spirit shines from within. It’s a startling contrast to the blue jeans, rumpled t-shirt, and sneakers.

“You did not say you were bringing another,” says Elrond.

“This is Blake. He can help. The way I see it, we need all the help we can get.”

Elrond steps toward Blake and levels an appraising gaze upon him for what feels like almost a minute. Whatever Elrond sees in Blake must pass muster because it’s down to business as soon as he’s finished with…whatever the hell that was.

“I have done preliminary reconnaissance,” he says, “There are more people inside than its condition indicates.”

“How many?” asks Ramirez.

“I have counted thirty-eight thus far, though there are likely more. Most of them are on the middle floors. The top floor has at least three more, including the hostage. However, the potential for armed conflict is the least of our worries.”

“What do you mean?” asks Blake.

“This place is more than a building. It is a doorway for the Unseen. An ancient evil slumbers here,” says Elrond, “Its poison has soured the land and seeped into the very walls. You must take care while inside.”

Blake chuckles and says, “You say that like this rundown old thing is more dangerous than drug dealers armed to the teeth.”

“It is.”

 

The Walton is hungry.

It’s a patient predator. It spends years waiting and watching for just the right one to lure into its stony embrace. If you’re under the sway of its macabre enchantment, you’d never know it. You’d have no idea why you’re so drawn to this ugly building that’s barely standing after years of neglect.

Like this one who seeks to destroy his enemy.  Does he think, _I want to set up shop in the cursed apartment building_? No, of course not. It’s the power of this place, understand? It has a hold on you. Without knowing why, you come up with reasons to come back and make excuses for sticking around.

It goes through phases, too, like the moon. During its waning years, only the most violent and bloodthirsty people (like our man Fred here) are susceptible to it. When it waxes full, no one can resist it. It can twist the hearts of good, strong people and make them do terrible things.

Ah, here come more people. Two are mortals. They are easy enough to corrupt. But the third is something…other. His spirit shines bright as a star. He is strong, so strong. He would have to be to bear his burdens and keep going. Such sorrow, such guilt, such loneliness. His heart is fertile ground for the power that dwells within the earth beneath the Walton. If it can get him, it will be full for a long, long time.

So, the Walton waits…

This place feels…wrong.

At first glance, it seems to make sense, but when you look again, it doesn’t work the way it should.

These windows, for instance. From the outside, they look like standard single windows you’d find on any Section 8 apartment. But when Blake peeked inside one of the rooms, there were double windows instead.

They make their way down a hall that ends in a sharp right turn leading to an elevator that, based on the exterior dimensions of the Walton, should hang  _outside_ the building itself.

Blake recoils and almost shouts a warning as Sarge presses the button got call the elevator, but the bell dings, so it’s too late. The doors open on a roomy car that’s still somewhat clean. The buttons are odd. There is no thirteenth floor, as is the custom with most buildings, but there are two buttons for the fourteenth floor. A G button marks the ground floor.

Hold on. He uses his finger to count the buttons.

“What?” asks Sarge.

“Too many floors,” says Blake.

“Huh?”

“There’s twenty buttons, but only nineteen floors.”

Elrond–Blake still can’t get over that name–pushes the button for the top floor. The doors close, and the car lurches upward. The unease that’s hung over him like a cloud eases a bit. It was probably nothing, just paranoia.

Then the elevator suddenly stops between floors twelve and fourteen, and the doors open…

…onto a hallway lit by soft white lights that give it a spectral haze. Several doors run parallel along the walls. The mortals see nothing out of the ordinary, yet a deep terror takes root in their hearts and makes them shrink back ever so subtly.

But Elrond sees the twins plain as day. They are, or seem to be, Elven children roughly six years of age. They stand still, hand-in-hand, and stare, unblinking at the trespassers. He can look upon them without fear because the Eldar are not frightened by the spirits of the dead, for they Unseen is partly where they live.

As if sensing their presence, Ramirez frantically presses the button for the top floor, but the doors remain open.

“There might be a stairway,” says Blake. He tries to keep his voice from shaking, but he doesn’t entirely succeed. Ramirez responds with the most  _You gotta be fucking kidding me_  look in human history.

Elrond steps into the hallway, his eyes coolly taking in the surroundings. To all appearances, this is just a normal hallway with the ugly gray floor common to many urban apartment buildings. If their eyes could pierce through the shroud separating Seen from Unseen, it would appear to Ramirez and Blake that bright light shines through Elrond’s form and raiment, as if through a veil, more ghostly than the spirits of the dead that dwell here.

Elrond leads them through corridors past rooms that, spatially, should completely overlap one another. Blake and Ramirez follow because Elrond is the kind of guy people follow, and they’d rather be in this freaky place with him than without him.

They do all but hold Elrond’s hand as they twist and turn through labyrinthine hallway (It shouldn’t take this long to walk from one end of this floor to the other, should it?), subconsciously registering the oddities of the Walton’s structure with growing unease.

They make a right, a left, and a right, and, just as the emergency stairs come into view, each notices that the other two are gone.

 

Blake stands in the middle of the hallway and wonders how in the world he got separated from the others. He and Sarge were sticking to Elrond like glue, but then they turned down a corridor, and he and Sarge simply weren’t there anymore.

What happened to them? Where did they go? Blake calls out for them, but the only response is his own voice echoing through the floor. It’s a desolate sound that makes him feel small and helpless and alone.

_While Mom’s back is turned, Liam slips away to go play in the toy department. There’s a pair of shiny cowboy guns that make a loud pop when you squeeze the trigger, and he can’t get enough of them. He finds the guns, and after five minutes (an extraordinarily long time for a six-year-old), he abandons the guns and explores the toy department. He passes by the dolls and other girly things and spends some time among the action figures. He finds a bunch of really cool action figures that do things when you push a button or squeeze their legs, plus the little green men and G.I. Joe’s and Ninja Turtles. After ten minutes, he’s done with them too, and he heads over to the Legos. As soon as his eyes alight on the Lego castle (with a dragon!), he needs Mom to get it for him._

_But Mom’s not there. Mom’s shopping._

_He goes to where he left her, but she’s gone. Distress rising, he searches through the aisles for her, but he can’t find her. He calls her name, but she doesn’t answer. He feels like that baby deer in that cartoon–what was it called?_

_“Mom! Mom!” he cries. His vision blurs as tears leak out of his eyes._

_(She’s gone because I’m bad.)_

_A lady who works at the store finds him walking around and crying like a big baby. She brings him to Mom, and seeing Mom right there with her basket full of stuff makes his heart shine like the sun. Mom hasn’t gone away. She’s right here and hugging him tight._

_“Don’t you ever scare me like that again, do you understand me?! Someone could’ve hurt you!” shouts Mom, eyes wide and wild. Liam nods.  
_

He’s lost and alone again, but this time, the strangers really are out to get him. He picks up the pace, scanning the hallway for the emergency exit.

He stops dead at his tracks at apartment 217.

The door is slightly ajar (and wasn’t the last time Blake passed by). A keychain dangles from the doorknob.

He knows he shouldn’t go any further. He shouldn’t walk toward Room 217. He shouldn’t slowly push the door further open and peek inside. He most certainly should not, under any circumstances, cross the threshold into the room.

There are a million and one reasons why shouldn’t be doing this, but he, like Bluebeard’s wife, can’t resist the pull of morbid curiosity. Unlike Bluebeard’s unfortunate wives, he knows there is a chamber of horrors waiting around the corner, but he presses on anyway. In a horror movie, this is the part where he’d be punished for his stupidity, and he knows it.

What he finds is a surprisingly roomy apartment just shy of lavish, though the decor is stuck in the 70′s. In all other ways, it’s a perfectly normal apartment just like other apartments in other buildings similar to this one.

Quiet as a cat, he pads through the apartment. Here is the living room with its big, bulky TV, the kind they used to sell before HDTV. Here is the kitchen, small but spotless. Here is the bedroom with the bed made up and clothes put away and not strewn about the bed and floor like they are in his apartment.

(It’s in the bathroom.)

And here is the bathroom. It’s huge compared to the ones in apartments he’s had. A plastic curtain winds around an old-fashioned white tub with claw feet. He walks toward the tub as if urged by something outside himself, like one of those sleepwalking episodes he used to have as a kid.

He pulls the shower curtain back.

The woman in the tub has been dead a long time. She’s bloated and falling apart in the cold water like some huge, fleshy glacier melting to pieces. Her dark hair floats in the water like seaweed.

This isn’t the first dead body Blake has seen (nor is it likely to be the last), but the one’s he’s come across were either freshly killed or pumped full of embalming fluid. It is, however, the first he’s encountered in such a state of decay. Oh, God, the  _smell_ –

The dead woman starts to rise.

Blake screams, but the sound never escapes his lips. It trips and falls inward, toward the deepest, darkest parts of himself. He stumbles back, eyes never leaving the dead woman coming out of the water, her fingers curled around the edge of the tub like claws

Blake turns and bolts. He scrambles to open the door to apartment 217, which is now closed and locked, though it wasn’t before. Too frightened to think, he doesn’t know that all he has to do is unlock the door and twist the knob to let himself out. He’s shaking too violently to move the lock, so he takes a few deep breaths to settle his nerves.

Calm reaches through the blind panic, and he steadily reaches for the deadbolt and unlocks the door. He laughs at himself for how hard he made such an easy and simple thing.

Already, a fog is starting to cloud over his memory of what he saw in the bathroom. There was no dead woman in the bathroom. That was just him thinking up worst case scenarios and getting carried away. Besides, if something was there, it would have gotten him by now. If he turns around, he’ll see nothing, nothing at–

Ice-cold rotting flesh closes around his throat, and he’s turned around to stare in that awful, dead face. As she chokes the life out of him, he doesn’t think  _help!_ or  _Sarge!_  or  _Elrond!_  He thinks:  _char_.

 

It’s the smell that lures Elrond to push open the door to Apartment 217. A light, floral scent mixed with salty sea air unlike what would be found in any place save one.

When he crosses over, he is no longer inside Walton Tenement Complex, but standing on soft grass. Ahead, concentric rings surround a short, grassy hill, white-barked trees making up the outer ring, and golden  _mellyrn_ comprising the inner ring. Niphredil and Elanor blossom upon the hill like white and yellow stars. The wind stirs his hair as he approaches the hill, and he hears the distant calls of seagulls.

As serene as it is, Elrond never liked being near Cerin Amroth, for each time he passed by, a deep sadness would pierce him through his core. He once believed it was the psychic residue brought on by the sorrow of a people who knew not the fate of their king, but, looking upon it now, he knows that it was foresight, not hindsight, that grieved him thus.

Elrond ascends the gentle slope of the hill. He is almost near the summit when he finds the mound of earth that protrudes ever so slightly. He recognizes it as the resting place of the unnamed dead. But even though it has no marker, he knows who is buried here. He sinks to his knees and places a hand upon the cool earth where Arwen lies. Though she is merely a few feet away, never has she been farther from him.

He wants to howl in agony and tear his clothes, screaming his pain to the heavens and the earth and the sea. It would be better for him of he could, but that process by which he could give full voice to his anguish is broken, so his mouth is sealed in stony silence.

Perhaps that is why he begins clawing at the dirt, making huge gashes in the soil as if from some wild animal. Others may say that he should make peace with Arwen’s passing, that he should just accept it. But he cannot; he  _will not_.

He digs and digs, nevermind the dirt getting all over his clothes or the cold seeping into his hands. With feverish intensity, he sinks his fingers into the earth again and again and again.

Finally, long after a Man’s or an Elf’s muscles would be too sore to move, he reaches her. Cradled in the earth, Arwen lies with her eyes closed and hands folded, perfectly preserved despite the passage of time. It’s as though she is not dead but merely sleeps. That she does not breathe is the only sign that her spirit has passed beyond the Circles of the World. Elrond pulls her from the grave and holds her close, kissing the top of her head just as he did countless times when she was small and more than a few times when she was grown.

He holds her for hours. He is still holding her when the sun has disappeared behind the horizon, and darkness reigns. Then, as if observing himself from outside himself, he sees himself lift Arwen into his arms with ease and carry her from Cerin Amroth.

“It is alright,” he tells her, “I have you. Ada has you.”

Elrond descends the hill, feeling oddly detached from himself, as if some power has him in its grip and propels him forward. Observing himself from outside himself, he sees himself bring Arwen into the corridor outside apartment 217 at Walton Tenement Complex. He sees himself turn down the hallway where the elevator waits, doors open. The power driving him has him press the button for the basement. The elevator’s doors shut, and the car jolts into movement, sinking down, down, down…

…to the bowels of the building. It’s a flat, open space with a few square columns holding the structure up. There is not much to watch, but the power dwelling in this place is strongest here, where it is closest to the land. It tugs him toward a certain spot where the boundary between Seen and Unseen is thinnest.

_Here_ , it says,  _Each must bury his own_.

A sledgehammer and shovel spill from behind one of the columns. He is loath to put Arwen on (under) the ground, so he briefly lays Arwen down and spreads his topcoat upon the concrete. He gently places her atop it and lets her know this will only be a moment.

He retrieves the tools and brings the sledgehammer high above his head and swings it down with all the force he can, making a small crater in the slab. The sound rings through the hollow underbelly of the building. He swings the sledgehammer again and again until he’s smashed an Arwen-sized hole in the stone floor. He gets on his hands and knees and scatters the rubble with his hands, uncovering the cold soil beneath.

He picks up the shovel and begins to dig.

 

Ramirez stands alone in the hallway. What the fuck just happened? Where did Blake and Elrond go?

A hard, cold feeling in his gut says that something has happened to him. He draws his weapon but keeps the barrel pointed down. The last thing he needs on his conscience is to shoot

(Sara)

some kid just playing around.

A presence disturbs the air. Ramirez feels a solid something brush against him. He whirls around and sees Elrond walking past him carrying something. Maybe it’s the odd lighting of the hallway that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere, but it looks like a skeleton. And is Elrond singing?

Elrond’s soft, rich voice cooing the simple words of what sounds like a lullaby. For a moment, a hush comes over the floor, as though all the things that scurry in the walls, beneath the floors, and within cracks and fissures stop what they’re doing and listen.

Ramirez starts to follow, yelling to get Elrond’s attention, but he keeps going as though he can’t even hear. His long, purposeful strides cover so much ground that Ramirez has to jog to even lag behind. As Ramirez gets closer to him, the skeleton turns its head toward him and makes a shush gesture with its bony finger placed where the lips should be.

Ramirez stops so fast he almost falls over. He struck by a sudden and powerful urge to flee, take the stairs and keep going until he’s in his car and driving at top speed away and never look back. What was it Elrond said? Some evil force lives here. But is this bone deep compulsion to run the power of this place or plain common sense?

The sign marked  **EXIT** shines in bold red letters.

 

_He’s in the basement_ , the voice tells Fred.

He glances at the hostage secured to the chair. With zip ties and duct tape holding her in place, there’s no way she can cut or wiggle her way out anytime soon. But if she does, well, he’ll just take care of her just like he’s gonna take care of her little friends crawling around this place like roaches.

Fred rises from his desk.

“If anybody come up here that ain’t me, shoot her,” he says. He walks straight to the elevator, and presses the down button. As he waits, something catches his eye. On the wall, beneath bold red letters that scream  **IN CASE OF EMERGENCY BREAK OPEN GLASS** , an ax glimmers with malevolent purpose. Fred smashes the glass and pulls out the ax.

The elevator groans up the floors. Its door opens lazily, and he steps inside, only vaguely aware that another presence shares the elevator with him. Perhaps, if he were in a less enchanted state, this presence would cause him alarm, but whatever power turns the gears in his mind has, perhaps permanently, jammed his capacity to feel fear.

The elevator rocks to a stop on the second of two fourteenth floors, the one that comes right after the twelfth. Some short Spanish fuck with a stupid Hitler mustache stands there gawking as if he’s never seen a Black man before. He strides forward and lifts the ax to chop that dumbass look off his face. The moment Fred’s eyes fall on the pistol in his hand, the guy aims and fires.

The first bullet goes into his shoulder. It should feel like the head of a red-hot sledgehammer penetrating his flesh, but he feels, at most, something like a pinprick. The next two into his belly. They don’t hurt either. The others land in his chest, bicep, liver, and thigh. He crashes to the floor. The guy with the mustache runs into the stairway, leaving him there. He should be dead. Maybe he is dying.

What he sees in his final moments is not his life flashing before his eyes, but that long-haired freak and that short fuck walking out of here with his dope and his money, taking over his businesses, becoming the biggest players in Detroit.

He’s dying? Whatever. He doesn’t give a fuck about dying. But he’ll be damned if his enemies take what’s his. They’ll pay for this. They’ll all pay.

As Fred hovers in that liminal space between life and death, voices murmur around him.

_His friends seem stronger than we first thought. More…resourceful. Perhaps we should have been dealing with them._

_What about this one? Can we still use him?_

_Perhaps. There is one more thing he may be able to do._

Fred musters all his will to roll to his side and grab the ax. He groans as the wound oozes. He coughs up blood. Little punk should’ve shot him in the head, and two more times to make sure. They think he’s just gonna stay here and wait to die? Fuck that. He’ll burn this muthafucka down before he lets that happen. They got theirs coming to them.

Meanwhile, Twinkie watches the two guards pile the bodies in the corner nearest the elevator and return to their posts. Is that how they’re gonna get rid of her? Pile her up with the others and make her disappear?

She wants to blame Elrond for not getting his white ass over here in time, but she ain’t got nobody to blame for this but herself. She should’ve known something like this would happen. If they came after Nicki, of course they’d come after her sooner or later. 

Don’t trust nobody. That’s what she was supposed to do. It’s how she survived so long on the street. She forgot that trusting people only gets you hurt.

It was too much to hope that Elrond would come. Why should he? He doesn’t give a fuck about her. Nobody does, except Nicki,and she’s damn near close to dead. Now she’s gonna get shot or cut up, and it’s nobody’s fault but hers.

_Think, Twinkie, think. How can you get out of this without those two guards plugging her full of holes?  
_

“Hey, I, uh…I gotta go to the bathroom,” she says. One of the guards tilts his head doubtfully.

“I know it sounds like a trick,” she says, “but it’s been a minute. But, hey, if you don’t mind the smell of piss, I guess I can go right here.”

One of the guards sighs and shakes his head. He cuts her from the chair and leads her by the arm into that creepy-ass elevator. His grip is tight, and that shit hurt like hell. He presses the button for the 18th floor. The elevator creaks down then jerks after what feels like forever.

The doors part onto a hollowed-out shell of a floor littered with debris from the crumbling ceiling and walls. The guard damn near rips her arm outta her socket as he hauls her into a cube of plaster and concrete that almost looks like it was once a place where people lived (and died). He slings her into a barely hidden corner.

“Hurry up,” he barks.

“Got a napkin or something?” she asks. He stands there, face blank. She sucks her teeth.

“Turn around, then. Can you do that?”

The guard turns around. She makes a big show of fumbling with her pants, waiting for that moment when his attention flags ever so slightly. A chunk of something hard sits at her foot.

“Almost finished,” she says, reaching down for it. The guard relaxes and sighs, tilting his head up just so as if to ask God why he was stuck with babysitting her. Twinkie raises the chunk of concrete in her bound hands, and strikes the guard in the back of his skull. The gun clatters to the ground, and he goes down like a sack of potatoes.

She twists her wrists free of her restraints and picks up the gun, but her wrists are so sore that she can’t hold it for shit. She tosses the gun aside and hurries toward the elevator, pressing the call button. The doors open, but there’s no light inside. From within, a soft whisper calls her name.  _Andrea…_

Fuck that. When a haunted elevator calls you by your government name, you take the damn stairs. She’s glad she’s got on tennis shoes.

Someone’s footsteps echo through the stairwell. Twinkie crouches down as low as she can and peeks between the bars holding up the railing. Someone emerges from the hallway, and Twinkie recognizes the cop who took Nicki’s statement when Elrond first got here. What was his name? Rodriguez? No, Ramirez. He’s holding a gun.

( _stay still don’t move stay still don’t move_ )

Ramirez looks up, eyes widening in shock. Twinkie gets up and runs up the stairs until–

“No, wait!”

Twinkie stops. Last thing she needs is to get her ass shot after she just got away from the guards. Ramirez slowly approaches, putting the gun back in his holster and putting his hands up.

“Twinkie, right?” he asks.

He continues, “Don’t worry. We’re getting you outta here.”

“’We’ who?”

“Elrond, me, and Blake.”

“Elrond?”

“Yeah. C’mon, let’s go,” he says, “we need to get outta here.”

She follows Ramirez down the stairs. As they make their way closer to the ground floor, Twinkie can’t shake the feeling that many eyes are watching and many ears are listening.

 

The Walton, if it had eyes, would watch with keen interest as Elrond, absorbed in digging in the ground beneath the building, pays no heed as the door to the basement eases open without a sound, and out steps Fred shambling like a walking corpse, shirt soaked with the blood ebbing from the bullet wounds all over his torso. The ax hangs by his side and gleams menacingly in the dim light.

( _I got you, muthafucka_.)

Elrond ducks just in time to dodge the blade that would have cleaved his head clean off his neck. He has no time to wonder how a mortal managed to sneak up behind him before he has to dart aside just as the ax chops down where his shoulder would have been a split second before. Dirt and bits of concrete fly from the groove left by Fred’s swing.

Fred sweeps the ax in wide arcs, growling as they whoosh past Elrond’s vital organs again and again. Through the haze of his bloodlust, he’s dimly aware that this long-haired freak has hit and kicked him repeatedly. Something warm trickles from his lip, brow, and cheek. The basement echoes with Fred’s labored breathing and the clash of metal against stone as he attacks and misses over and over again.

“That all you got, faggot?” he taunts. He lifts the ax high to split Elrond’s head in half like a log. Instead of cleaving him neatly in two, it’s caught in Elrond’s grip and smashed into his face. Fred spits blood and broken teeth into his pretty-boy face and cackles with mad glee before ramming him into the concrete pillar nearby. The impact makes a vaguely human-shaped crater. Aiming for Elrond’s head, he drives the ax into one of the pillars with such force that the handle splinters and breaks in two.

If one looks at the fight with eyes that can perceive the Unseen, one would see two figures, one light and one shadow, meeting and parting then twisting together in dizzying patterns. They become a hurricane of battle that swirls through every square inch of the basement. There is no broken bottle of loose chunk of cement that cannot, at any second, be swept up in the maelstrom and jabbed into a limb, a torso, or an eye. It is no longer just the two of them, for their fight has gone beyond mere survival. They are good and evil, life and death, Ali and Foreman, Bruce Lee and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Elrond and Fred, slugging it out in the bowels of this bewitched edifice. Only one will walk away from this sweaty, bloody mess.

Abandoning all pretense of civilization, they come at each other with all they have. A tangle of fists and feet emit inhuman grunts and snarls. Every time Elrond slams his fist into Fred’s, he sees Nichelle’s swollen and purple, hair singed to the scalp. Every time Elrond smashes his knee into Fred’s torso, he sees her anchored to machines that make her breathe, eat, and shit.

For an instant, Fred feels a flicker of an emotion he hasn’t felt in years: fear. He hammers Elrond’s face and body, yet no matter how much or how hard he hits, this asshole won’t eat the pavement. A single hit from his massive fists can–and has–dropped guys even bigger than this fool, but he bounces up like one of those dolls with the round bottom that you hit and hit but it just rocks back and forth then stops upright. He’s clobbering the hell outta this guy, giving him punishment no one else has survived, but this fucker…just…won’t…go…down.

 

With his injuries, it is either a miracle or a curse that Fred still stands at all. Elrond slips and slides from his attacks with a kind of grace that makes it look like he is dancing, and, in a way, he is. Fred’s strikes get slower and clumsier as he strains under the burden of exhaustion and frustration. This is the moment Elrond has been waiting for. He flows around Fred like water, intercepting his every move and turning his offense into openings for counterattacks. A strong, quick finger jab to the armpit immediately followed by driving a heel into the side of the knee damages the nerves in Fred’s arm and leg. His arm and leg useless, Fred uses a pillar to struggled to his feet.

_You better kill me, punk. ‘Cuz if you don’t, I’ma kill you and that bitch_ , thinks Fred. Images come to him, vibrant as a memory: Fred doing unspeakable things to Nichelle as she screams and cries for help he cannot give, Fred strangling her, his own head clasped in Fred’s hands as he struggles to no avail, Fred pressing on his head like a vice until it splits open like a melon.

In a last, desperate charge for victory, Fred roars and hurls himself at Elrond, crashing both of them into a pillar. It fractures like a bone. Dust showers down on them from above. Ignoring the pain in his back and ribs, Elrond puts Fred’s massive neck into a choke hold, looping his legs around his ribcage, and squeezes. Fred gasps for air and flails, pounding on Elrond’s arms and legs, but Elrond only draws his hold tighter. By some uncanny power, or perhaps just the will to live, Fred stands, lifting Elrond with him, then lets himself fall flat on his back, cracking a few of Elrond’s ribs as he lands directly on top of him. Elrond still does not let go. Fred lets out ugly, rasping gags, squirming and kicking his legs fruitlessly. Elrond does not let go.

Fred does not die so much as he simply…stops. He is no longer breathing. His body goes slack and cold. His dead weight droops and refuses to move, like a machine that has simply run out of fuel. When he is certain that Fred’s spirit no longer inhabits his body, Elrond finally releases his hold.

 

The lights go out. Ramirez has never been afraid of the dark. It’s what’s  _in_  the dark that frightens him.

“Slow,” he whispers. Twinkie follows his lead, feeling their way down each stair one at a time (one, two, three). He counts the stairs as they go down (five, six, seven), the better to know how many floors they went.

As they step down (nine, ten, eleven), Ramirez hears–thinks he hears–something on the stairwell. It starts off faint like a whisper (thirteen, fourteen, fifteen), but as they go down (seventeen, eighteen, nineteen–there are nineteen stairs for each floor), the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

He pauses on the stairwell to get his bearings when he hears it again. Slow, deliberate, closer. If whatever it is is human, it can’t be more than three or four floors above them.

“C’mon, we got this,” he says.

“I– I can’t,” whispers Twinkie.

“You’re doing fine,” he says.

“It’s not that,” she says.

She lowers her voice, and her words quiver as she says, “Something’s following us.”

A chill washes over Ramirez. If Twinkie hears it too, that means that whatever it is is real. Part of him wants to open the emergency door and book it toward the elevator as fast as he can, but another thought stops him. What if this thing wants them to do just that?

If it can see in the dark, there’s nothing stopping it from running up to them and doing whatever it has in mind. It must want them to know it’s there. It must want the to panic, maybe fall down the stairs and break their necks, or go running blindly into one of these apartments and find something even worse.

“We’ll be OK,” he says. Will they?

 

As the heat of battle fades, Elrond looks around. He swipes the wetness at his nose and finds blood. Sharp pain threads through his ribs, and his head throbs in tune with his heartbeat. It feels as if a Mountain-troll has taken its club to his head and his side.

Fred lies on the floor, dead. A few yards away, Arwen is on the ground next to an unfinished hole.

What is he doing? He should be digging. The shovel is broken, so he uses his hands. From a far-off place, someone calls him.

(“ _Help us!”_ )

There is, momentarily, a need to respond, but it will have to wait until Arwen is safely cocooned in the womb of the earth from which she shall revive. His nails break and bleed from the effort, but he must keep going. Arwen needs him.

The Walton watches. If it had lips, it would smile.

From deep within, in a place the evil inhabiting this building cannot touch, comes a memory. The line between past and present blurs, and time stops and pools around a single moment.

It starts off gently, like a lone snowflake drifting from the sky. Then, like an avalanche, it overtakes his senses until he is no longer kneeling on the ground scooping up the soil beneath the building with his bare hands, but…

_…standing upon the cool, rocky shore in the Gray Havens. The gulls’ melancholy cries echo across the bay._

_The ship is almost ready. Twilight will shortly be upon them. His eyes swallow up every detail about her, for this is last time he will see her face by the light of day until he either passes into Mandos or the Enemy is defeated once and for all._

_He knows she must depart, but he cannot let her go. She is his beloved, his lady, the mother of his children, his most trusted advisor, his lover, and his best friend. How will he go on without her?_

_“Let me come with you,” he pleads._

_“You are still needed here,” she says. He cares not. Let his people dwindle and the line of kings fail if it means she can remain by his side. He holds her as tight as he can without causing her pain. If he keeps her close, if he loves her enough, maybe she will not have to leave._

_“Stay,” he begs._

_“You know I cannot,” she says. They have spoken of it before. If she remains in Middle-earth, she may live, but her spirit will dwindle until she is naught but a phantom of what she once was._

_The ship is ready. He escorts her to the dock where the white ship awaits.  
He wants to step onto the deck with her and sail away, leaving behind Endor and its sorrows. As if sensing this, she stops and brings her lips to his. He returns her kiss, and drinks in the intoxicating taste and feel of her one final time. Her clever hands slip beneath his robe. His body awakens as it senses a flicker of her once insatiable desire. Then the shadow of her torment comes upon her, and it fades. She lays her head upon his shoulder._

_“I will wait for you,” she says._

_Then she asks, “Will you promise me something?”_

_“Anything.”_

_She puts her hand upon his chest. His heart thumps against her palm._

_“Do not close your heart to the world. Stay kind. Heal its hurts. Give your wisdom and strength to those who need it. Can you promise me that?”_

_He nods. She kisses him, chastely this time, then boards the ship._

_The ship casts off, floating smoothly toward the Sea. As it sails into the horizon, the sun sets forever._

Elrond shakes his head, dispelling the enchantment this place has cast upon him. He looks at where "Arwen” lies, but recoils when he sees that, instead of his daughter, there is a pile of bones. What on earth has he been doing?

( _“Elrond, wherever you are, get here quick. I don’t think we can outrun…this.”_ )

( _“Lord, please don’t let us die here.”_ )

Lady Twinkie is in danger. Ramirez too.

The stairway is dark. He can only see the barest outline of the steps and the railing, but this is enough to allow him to bound up at full speed, two and three stairs at a time.

He hopes he is not too late.

 

There are more footsteps following them now. Soft steps, deliberate steps. Closer, faster.

Twinkie clutches Ramirez’s arm in a death grip. They’re going way too slow. There has to be a way to speed this up without falling down however many flights of stairs there are.

(step…step…step…)

If she could just see what’s following them, even if it’s too horrible for words, she might be able to handle this better. It’s like those scary movies where they don’t show the monster itself, only the weird, creepy things that happen around the monster. Those are the ones that give her nightmares. A ghost or demon can be exorcised. A vampire can get a stake through the heart. A serial killer can be shot or beat to shit. But this? The stuff you can’t even name? That’s terrifying.

“What floor are we on?” she whispers.

“Um…each floor has nineteen stairs, and we’ve been walking a while. We must be four or five floors down.”

Twinkie could’ve sworn it was more than that. Then again, she wasn’t counting stairs. She is now, though. She’s grateful to have something on her mind other than the thing–or things–following them.

(step…step….step-step-step…step-step…)

It sounds even closer now, less than a floor above them. One flight of stairs (Oh, Jesus). Half a flight of stairs. It’s right behind them. Hot breath sends cold chills down her spine. It reeks of dead things.  _I swear to God, if it touches me, I’ll piss on myself._

Ramirez pauses to feel his way down the next flight of stairs. What’s he stopping for? They gotta get the hell outta here! Can’t he feel that?

Below, something else ascends the stairs at an urgent pace. She can’t quite see exactly what it is save for the cool, gentle way it shines, like starlight. As the light draws closer, the presence behind her recedes, and she sees more of it. Twinkie recognizes a humanoid shape glowing as if lit from within.

It’s–no way! Elrond’s bounding up the stairs so fast he’s damn near flying.

“Where the hell you–” she starts, but he gets right to it without so much as a  _hi, Twinkie, are you OK?_

“Your partner does not have much time,” he says to Ramirez, “He is on the thirteenth floor. You must find him and take him out of this place.”

“What about you?” asks Twinkie.

Elrond gives her a wicked grin, and it’s no wonder Nicki fell for him. She’s always liked the ones that got a bit of the Devil in ‘em.

He says, “I believe the saying is, ‘I got this.’ Now go, and do not look back.”

Ramirez only sees about half a second of what happens next, but whatever it is shakes the shit out of him because he grabs her hand and takes off so fast he’s damn near dragging her down the steps. Twinkie wants to turn around. She wants to turn around so bad, but the streaks of white at Ramirez’s temple that weren’t there before tells her it’s best to keep her eyes forward.

The light radiating from Elrond is just enough to see by, so they speed down the stairs until they reach the thirteenth floor. He walks briskly down the hall, turning this way, turning that way, calling for someone named Blake, but he still hasn’t let go of her hand.

“Do you have to hold my hand like I’m six years old?” she asks.

“Last time I didn’t, and all three of us got separated. So, yes.”

They find him in apartment 217. At first, she thinks he’s dead. He lies on the floor stock-still, eyes bulging as if he got up close and personal with something utterly horrifying. Foamy spittle drizzles out of his mouth. He’s white as a sheet.

Still holding her hand–goddamn, she’s not a baby!–Ramirez kneels next to him and checks his vitals.

“Can you help me carry him into the elevator so we can get him outta here?”

“The elevator?” asks Twinkie.

( _”Andrea…”_ )

“I…uh, OK.”

They get Blake into the elevator–

( _”Andrea…”_ )

and her shoulders promise soreness for at least a couple of days. The doors close, and gears groan as the elevator descends.

Blake breathes a bit easier now that he’s away from that room, but he hasn’t come to yet. He’s good-looking enough, as far as scrawny white guys go. He’s got Dumbo ears that stick out from his head, and he needs a haircut. The ear is slowly turning from white to pink as color returns to him. Her stomach growls. That’s right; she hasn’t eaten dinner yet. Maybe the delicate flesh of Blake’s ear can hold her until she gets home. Her stomach growls again. Both ears, then. But why waste the rest of him? She’s so, so hungry, and there’s plenty of him to keep her full. Besides, he might not make it anyway, so why waste the meat? If she gets the gun from Ramirez–

“You OK?” asks Ramirez.

“What? Oh, uh, I’m fine.”

The gun is right there. If she “accidentally” drops Blake, Ramirez will have to get from under his dead weight, and by then, she can have the gun and shoot them both.

“You sure?” he asks. She nods. He cautiously takes his hand off his gun.

Hold on. What the fuck? Was she really just thinking about–no, nope, nuh-uh She wasn’t about to– what kind of Hannibal Lecter, Idi Amin-ass…

Oh,  _hell_ no. They need to hurry the hell up and get outta here. She’s had enough of this fucking place. If she had money, she’d bulldoze the fuck outta this shithole. Then she’d burn whatever’s left over to a crisp and make sure to put salt on top just to be safe.

The elevator clunks as it hits the ground floor. Twinkie hurries the hell out of that demonic-ass elevator before it decides to try something else. They haul Blake through the lobby and out of the Walton without any other weird shit happening. A beat-up Toyota is waiting for them just outside the gate. Ramirez groans. The window is smashed open, and  _Fuck da police_ is spray-painted on the side. Twinkie’s never been happier to be walking toward a busted-up ride. They put Blake in the back seat face-up so that he can breathe better. They should get him to a hospital as soon as Elrond comes outta there. She glances at the building–holy shit.

Sinister green light shines from the windows on the floor where they left Elrond, making the Walton appear as a many eyed monstrosity. Bright, white flashes pulse within the sickly green, as if some kind of lightning storm has been unleashed in the depths of the building. Even standing out here, Twinkie can sense its consuming hunger, its pain and rage. Whatever Elrond’s doing to that place is fucking it up real good. Finally, darkness.

Elrond should be walking out of the front door any time now. He’s coming any second. Any minute. Ten minutes pass, and still no Elrond. Twinkie bites her nails, a habit she thought she kicked when she was twelve. Ramirez gazes up at the building, arms crossed against the chill.

“What’d you see in there?” she asks.

“Hm?”

“When Elrond found us, you saw something.”

“Oh, uh…”

Ramirez takes a deep breath, brow furrowing as he seems to struggle to find the words.

“It was, um, a lotta…things on the stairway. They were…four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

“Look, if you don’t wanna talk about it, just say so.”

“I do. What I saw was how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.”

“O…K…”

“No, no, I mean _el que lee mucho y anda mucho, ve mucho y sabe mucho_.“

“Say what?”

“That’s not it. What I saw was by the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”

“Alright, none of that makes sense.”

“I…I don’t know. I’m trying, but it’s like my mouth won’t let me.”

(From this point forward, for almost every night Ramirez will dream of countless dead, inhuman things, unseen but real, following him in the dark. As he sleeps, he will hear footsteps approaching from behind and feel hot breath on his neck, and his eyes will fly open just when it touches him.)

Twinkie turns her gaze back to the Walton. She rubs her hands to keep the chill from her bones.

She still can’t believe Elrond came to save her. He must’ve known it was a trap. He had no reason to believe she was even alive. But he came anyway. Not because he was in love with her or anything like that (he’s not really her type anyway). He came because her life matters to him. No hesitation, no negotiation. Just getting it done.

The way he stormed up those stairs like some fairy tale knight storming a tower (for her!) was a sight to see. Man, if Nicki coulda been here to see it–

Twinkie’s heart sinks. Nicki might not go anywhere or see anything ever again. Even if she wakes up, how’d she tell her that her boyfriend got himself killed trying to save her? The stories all say that the knight comes to the tower to rescue the princess and slay the evil dragon, but in the real world, sometimes the dragon eats the knight.

Ahead, the front door to the Walton opens. Elrond steps out with casual ease and crosses the courtyard. Is it really him, or is it another fucked up illusion from the building? Ramirez draws his gun. He must be asking himself the same thing.

“Lady Twinkie,” he says, “are you unharmed?”

Yup, it’s Elrond. Now that Twinkie sees him up close, he didn’t get out of that building as unscathed as she thought. He looks like he just wrestled a buffalo with rabies. Even so, there’s something aesthetic about the bruise on his cheek and the blood dripping from his nose. It’s so unfair.

“Why do you stare at me so?” he asks.

“Your nose is bleeding.”

Elrond wipes his nose with his hand, testing it to see if it’s broken. It isn’t, the lucky bastard.

“Has Blake recovered?” he asks.

“He’s sleeping it off,” says Ramirez, “might take him to the hospital anyway to make sure. You need a ride yourself?”

“Normally, I prefer to walk,” he says, wincing as he takes a breath, “but this time I shall accept your offer. Lady Twinkie?”

Elrond opens the front passenger door, gesturing for her to get in the car. He winces as he does so.

“You a’ight?” she asks.

“I have fared worse than a few cracked ribs. Worry not for me, Lady Twinkie,” he says, “three days hence, it will be as if I were not injured at all. Come, let us take you home.”

That’s the best idea anyone’s ever had.


	8. Chapter 8

 

> _One pill makes you larger_  
>  _And one pill makes you small_  
>  _And the ones that mother gives you_  
>  _Don’t do anything at all_  
>  _Go ask Alice_  
>  _When she’s ten feet tall_  –Jefferson Airplane, “White Rabbit”

I…

I am…

I float

(float we all float)

through nothingness that goes on forever. I am small, a fraction of a drop of water. I am tiny, a sliver of a grain of sand. I am a mote of dust, infinitesimal.

I think I was remembering…something.

But it’s faded now, if it was ever there at all. What if this is all there ever was?

Am I still me?

Do I still be?

“I think therefore I am.” Or something like that? But what if this is not thought? What if these things we call thoughts are just fragments of consciousness which happen to collide for a moment, for a lifetime?

 

November chill turns into December cold. Winter sweeps in from further north, covering Detroit in a white, icy shroud. Pedestrians shiver beneath their winter coats and layers of fabric. Radios blaring from passing cars warn listeners about a blizzard coming toward the city and predicts another two or three feet of snow. Elrond lets it wash over him. There is a strange comfort in the snow and ice, as if the landscape itself has turned bleak to reflect his mood.

Fred shall never harm or threaten anyone ever again, but there is no satisfaction in knowing this, for it makes no difference in Nichelle’s condition. He had carried some dim, romantic notion that, if he resolved this matter, if he did for Nichelle what he failed to do for

(Celebrían)

(Gil-galad)

(Celebrimbor)

everyone for so long, her eyes would flutter open, and, reunited at last, all would be as it was. Of course, in the real world, it never happens that way, and certainly not for him. He still reads to her, and it is as fruitless now as it was when he began, but he, fool as he is, cannot help hoping that his words will reach her if he tries hard enough. He completes the final novel of The Dark Tower series, and when he reaches the final page, a pang of recognition stabs him through the very core of his  _fae_.

The final words of the story haunt him for several days. During rare hours of rest, he dreams he walks beneath a blazing hot sun across a sea of white sand. Forward, forward, ever forward he goes, refusing to stop lest he look back and find that there are bones peeking out of his footprints.

He carries a new book toward the hospital now, a tale titled  _Beloved_  by a storyteller of Nichelle’s people named Toni Morrison. It would not have been his preference to select a story so…difficult, but Lady Twinkie has assured him that it is one of Nichelle’s favorites despite the subject matter.

Though he cannot fathom why a mother would harm her own children, cannot imagine himself doing the same to Arwen or Elladan or Elrohir, he will tell her this story. The brutal poetry of each line printed on the yellowing pages horrifies as it exhilarates, but he will say the words.

He will do it for the same reason that he sits by her side and holds her hand for many hours every day. He will do it for the same reason he brings her flowers or takes her to a restaurant that serves her favorite dishes. He will do it for the same reason that he carved and painted wooden figurines for his sons when they were small and had tea with Arwen and her dolls when she was but a babe. What other reason does he need?

As he speeds up to a brisk walk along the street where the hospital sits, a sharp-eyed onlooker may notice that he leaves no tracks in the snow.

 

Darkness.

Silence.

What is this? What’s going on? Am I dead? No, I’m breathing. I think I’m breathing. Maybe this is a trick my mind plays on itself, and I’m just remembering breathing.

Where am I? I wanna open my eyes. I wanna see–

I can’t. Why can’t I open my eyes?

Maybe I can reach and– I can’t move. Why can’t I move?

No, I’m moving. Weightless, no friction.

Is this flying? No, I’m…I’m floating….floating like a…like a balloon bobbing on its silver string in the hands of a

(monster)

(spider)

(Thing)

clown in a bright, baggy jumpsuit with three big, orange pom-poms.

_(”Hey, there, Nicki! Want a balloon? They float. They allll float, Nicki. We all flooooat down here. And when you’re down here with me, you’ll float too!”)_

What the hell is going on? What’s happened to me? What’s happening to me? 

 

Tien snuggles closer to him for warmth and giggles as he squirms when her cold feet presses against his legs. It’s been so oddly chilly lately, even here in California. She can’t stand the cold, hates even the hint of her breath on the air. Instead of telling her to put on socks, he holds her tighter in his arms. He only does this when something is bothering him.

“You’re worrying about him again,” she says.

“No,” says Thranduil.

“It’s been a few weeks.”

“So what of it?”

He would say that. He doesn’t like to appear weak or uncertain in front of others. It is his habit to hide his true feelings even from her, as if caring about somebody other than himself were a flaw. Such a thing can be good in a king, but it’s frustrating as hell in a husband.

It used to infuriate her, but now she finds it amusing. It took her the better part of twenty years to figure out that smiling or laughing at his worst habits does more to change his behavior than arguing with him does. He needs to see himself as a very serious and important person. He needs everyone to know he’s the king of the jungle and be awed by his grace and power. But she knows his secret, even if he at times forgets it: underneath, he’s just a big pussycat.

“You will feel better if you see him.”

“I’m fine,” he says. They both know he’s not fooling anyone.

“Not for you, idiot. You should go make sure he hasn’t done something stupid.”

This is a dance they’ve done for over forty years. He pretends he’s above such a lowly notion as giving a damn about anything or anyone. She gently–well, not so-gently–puffs up his ego by insinuating that it’s the other person who needs someone smart and strong and capable to make sure everything is alright. Works like a charm every time.

“I suppose it’s wise to visit and make sure he hasn’t burned Detroit to the ground,” says Thranduil. Tien kisses him on the cheek.

 

I hear a voice, or maybe I’m hearing things.

_(Nichelle, Lasto beth nîn, tolo dan nan galad.)_

Nichelle? What is Nichelle?

Wait, that’s not right. Nichelle isn’t a what. Nichelle is a who.

Who is Nichelle?

Nichelle…Nichelle…Nichelle…

I remember now! That’s what they used to call me.

Nichelle.

I remember, or I think I remember…

I was at the shop. Someone came.  A customer? No, not a customer. What did they want?

_(“It is to our mutual benefit for you to consider our offer.”)_

_(”Sign the contract, Miss Washington.”)_

Someone came, and then–

( _“Have it your way, then. Fred, persuade her.”_ )

(fist. gut.)

(punch. face.)

( _”Sign the contract, Miss Washington.”_ )

and then–

(BANG! blood. pain.)

Did I…did I get hurt?

There was…smoke…a fire…?

(I can’t breathe)

Yes, a fire. The store burned down, and I was

(left to die)

trapped inside.

I should be dead, but I’m not alive either.

I linger between spaces.

Can’t go on, can’t go back.

I

(float they float they all float down here)

glide through this…whatever it is.

Is this what death is like?

 

Lucky comes back to work the day before Chanukah. It’s a good thing, too, because there’s usually an influx of emergencies this time of year. It’s as though fate has decided that while everyone is either on vacation or staying at home and spending time with their families is the perfect time to make someone have a heart attack or get hit by a car.

The emergency room is even more understaffed than usual for the season. Pat and Brenda retired a few months ago, so it’s just him and a handful of nurses during the night shift, and that’s when he doesn’t have to pull a double. David has no idea how the hell they’re gonna get through the new year without losing most of their patients, but when Lucky comes in wearing scrubs, it’s as though the heavens have parted, and God has personally delivered salvation to Henry Ford Hospital. Thank the God he’s not sure he believes in.

Lucky’s got short hair now, some classic cut that reminds David of Golden Age movie stars. It sets off his penetrating eyes and shows off more of his face–he’s all high cheekbones, flawless complexion, and a jawline for days–as if anyone needed more reason to envy his good looks.

(Which reminds him–he needs to pick up candles for the menorah. The story doesn’t mean anything to him personally–he’s firmly agnostic and strictly secular as far as observance goes–but the menorah is the only thing Bubbe had left of her family, all of whom died in Auschwitz.)

As soon as Lucky gets to work, he may as well have never left. To tell the truth, it’s like having another doctor there, one more knowledgeable and experienced than he will ever hope to be. If he had a God complex like a lot of other doctors out there, he’d hate Lucky’s guts, but there’s no room for ego when patients are in shock or go into cardiac arrest.

This place needs all the help it can get.

 

Shards of dream and bits of memory float

(they all float)

around me simultaneously.

a ripe red rose blossoms  
                          “my lady, it’s a girl”  
its center as bright  
as a thousand suns  
                          the smell of fresh-baked  
                          chocolate chip cookies  
a huge black tower  
                          made with a grandmother’s love  
no, not black, for that  
is not dark enough–  
                          children squealing  
rising from a field of red roses  
                          with laughter and shouting  
humming the song  
                          “trick or treat”  
of creation.  
( _lasto beth nîn, tolo dan nan galad_ )  
                          waterfalls rushing  
                          into the river roaring  
the man in black  
                          by the deep cleft  
flees across the desert  
                          of a fertile valley  
and the gunslinger follows

 

When Thranduil arrives in Detroit, the city is not, as he briefly imagined, on fire. He rents a sensible Volvo with all-wheel drive. It’s a relaxing fifteen-minute trip to the hospital. Despite the sleet and falling snow, the car weaves through traffic with practiced ease.

He does not find Nichelle or Elrond in the ICU. A vacuum opens up in the bottom of his gut. What if he has come too late? She may already be

(dead)

gone. Hesitantly, he approaches the nurses’ desk.

“Can I help you?” asks an old woman wearing a name tag that says Mary. She has yellow-gray hair that must have been flaming red in her youth. There is, in her face, a certain resemblance to 

(Tauriel)

that girl his son was so fond of. Or perhaps that is merely his memory taking over his sight again.

“Yes,” he says, his words strangely shaky, as if he has any reason whatsoever to be shy or unsure around this person.

“I’m looking for a friend of mine who works here. His name is Elrond.”

Mary smiles. She says, “He’s not allowed to come to work until tomorrow night. Doctor’s orders.”

“Is something wrong?”

“He pulled a triple and three doubles back-to-back. I tell ya, that guy never sleeps. Why don’t ya try calling him?”

“He doesn’t answer.”

“It can get pretty hectic here.”

“Thank you,” says Thranduil. This should be the end of it. Elrond’s coworker just confirmed that he is neither missing nor dead. But Nichelle…

“Excuse me. I don’t mean to bother you, Miss Mary,” he says. Mary looks up from a chart. Her eyes light up with her smile.

“Do you know what happened to a patient who was here? Her name is Nichelle Washngton.“

“Washington? Oh, her. She was relocated to a long-term facility.”

“Was there any change in her condition?”

Mary shakes her head.

“Thank you again.”

Thranduil spends the next thirty-six hours exploring Detroit. Empty, decaying homes and buildings are everywhere, but there are pockets of life that suggest that Motown may return to some semblance of the thriving metropolis it once was. The new generation of hip hop artists reclaim vacant storefronts as their jury-rigged studios. Graffiti artists spray-paint vibrant patterns over drab gray walls. The city’s infrastructure may be crumbling, but the people are determined and resilient. In a way, they resemble the Rangers of the North. Where despair once clung to the city like a bloated tick, hope has taken root.

Thranduil wants to believe this means that things will get better for this place and its people, but hard experience tells him that things tend to get much worse after the seem to get better. The shadowy presence was dealt a blow, at least for a time (which he suspects Elrond is directly responsible for), but an evil of that nature never simply goes away. It bides its time then unleashes something even more terrible.

It’s almost midnight when he returns to the hospital. The student nurse manning the front desk of the lobby kindly but firmly informs him that Elrond is with patients, so he will have to wait until he goes on break. Were he in Mirkwood, he would have barged into the emergency room, permission or no, and demanded to be taken to Elrond that very instant. But he isn’t a king anymore, so he waits and fidgets. He waits and fidgets for four hours.

Elrond finally emerges from the emergency room. There’s blood on his hands–no, those are gloves. When he peels them off, his hands are (still) clean. In fact, he seems perfectly fine, although–

“You cut your hair.”

“So I have noticed,” says Elrond. He disposes the bloody gloves in a box marked “bio-hazard.”

“But you–why?”

“Have you really come all this way to interrogate me about my personal grooming?”

“No, I came because…”

 _I wanted to see if you were OK_ , he thinks, but he says, “I hear Nichelle was moved to a long-term facility.”

Pain flickers in Elrond’s eyes, and Thranduil immediately wishes he never brought her up. Today seems to be his day for stumbling around Elrond’s minefield of trauma. Damn, why does this have to be so hard? A mocking voice that sounds a lot like Mithrandir’s says that it is only difficult because he makes it so. Thranduil mentally tells that voice to shut up.

Looking at Elrond now, free from the demands of his job and his vengeance, he seems so…lost. It’s clear now why he throws himself into his work with such zeal. He is like a spinning top that has to be kept spinning lest it topple and fall off the edge of its world. Thranduil knows that look. It’s the same one he saw on the face of his son after informing him that his mother the queen had fallen in Gundabad. How desperately Legolas must have needed comfort from him, and how abysmal a father he must have been not to have noticed it.

Before he can think better of it, Thranduil steps forward and carefully wraps his arms around Elrond, whose arms dangle by his sides as the tension melts out of him. It is odd to embrace him, for he feels simultaneously more substantial than other Elves and more ethereal. Perhaps if he had done this instead of given him a gun, Elrond would have picked up the phone when he called.

 

i take the blue pill and shrink so small that a single atom dwarfs me.

i take the red pill and grow so large a universe can fit within my womb.

.esrevinu eht fo gninnigeb eht litnu kcab yaw

,neht erofeb neve dna noitpecnoc ym fo tnemom eht litun won morf og i

.sdrawkcab swolf emit

then loops back and seems to move forward again

nothing (no thing)

nowhere (now here)

memory

fragmented

thought

incoherent

i am

slipping away

dissolving

i am

becoming

i

am

(as i am)

(as i will be)

 

_beep…beep…beep…beep…_

( _“She’s waking up.”_ )

Nichelle awakens to white. As her eyes slide open, something moist and soft presses against her forehead, her temple, her cheek. White fuzzes into pale gray then into blotches of color and shapes. Voices whisper. Footsteps march back and forth all around her. There is mild discomfort in her throat and between her legs as something subtly shifts inside her stomach, bladder, and bowels. She tries to feel for whoever or whatever is doing this to her, but her arms don’t move. She wants to get a look at them, but she can’t turn her head, can’t even fully open her eyes.

Where the hell is she? Why can’t she see? Why can’t she move? What the fuck are they doing to her? What the hell is going on here?  _Stop it! Don’t touch me! Leave me alone!_  Hot tears leak out of her eyes.

Warmth and softness cup her cheek, wiping away the tears. She wants to lean into it, craves the comfort it offers, but she can’t move, can’t do anything but lie here in this (she thinks) bed that feels like a coffin. Her whole body shakes with sobs.

“Be at peace. You need not be afraid,” coos a gentle voice, though whether it speaks to her ears or to her mind she cannot tell. She lets herself be cradled in the smooth flow of words, clinging to it as a baby clings to her mother’s breast. Here, no harsh brightness disturbs her peace. Here, there is only softness, warmth, and comfort. The voice carries her to…

 

_…the edge of the harbor where a swan-white ship floats on deep blue waters. It is almost ready to bear her hence. The Sea is so close she can smell the salt of its waters, but in her heart she remains in a deep valley overlooking a fast-flowing river._

_Strong, warm arms hold her in a tender embrace. She snuggles into layers of silk and velvet, takes in the scents of parchment and leather, the smell of books, his first love._

_“Stay,” he whispers. How desperately she wishes she could. If only his love could cure all her hurts. If only her fears could be banished with his touch and all her pains dispelled with his kiss. But she has seen the future of what will happen if she stays._

_There will come a time when, desperate to be as close to her as flesh will allow, he will reach for her, and instead of responding with joy and desire, she will shrink from him. She will hate herself for not being able to find pleasure with him, and he will hate himself for reminding her of how she suffered. They wil try to make it work, to find some way beyond the fear and pain, but they will only wound each other when they are most vulnerable, and their passion for one another will turn to ashes._

_No, she must board the ship and let it take her across the Sea._

 

When Nichelle awakens again, she lies in a hospital bed. Her eyes hurt. Elrond sits next to her, his fingers laced with hers. Sunlight streaking from the window makes lines of light and shadow on his figure. He brings her hand to his lips, kissing ever so gently. She wants to ask him so many questions– _What happened? How long was I out? Where’s Twinkie? When did you cut your hair?_ –but the words sink back into her throat as if they weigh a thousand pounds.

“Hush, my love,” coos Elrond, “you need to rest. All will be answered in time.”

He kisses her on the cheek, then on the mouth, painstakingly careful, as if he fears she may break. His lips are unbelievably soft, like a woman’s, awakening her craving for him. God, she wants this so bad. She doesn’t care that she’s lying in a hospital bed, or that some nurse could walk in on them any minute. She needs to feel his heat, his flesh, on top of her, inside her. Her hand comes to life and slides along the thin mattress to rest upon his inner thigh.

Why is he wearing clothes? They need to come off. She deepens the kiss. Elrond moans. The sound sends a quiver between her legs. She squirms, jostling the catheter, and winces at the discomfort. Damn.

“ _Diheno nin_ ,” says Elrond.

“It’s OK,” she says, her words rasping against her throat like sandpaper.

“I shall retrieve the nurse,” he says.

“Don’t go,” she wants to say, but she’s still too weak to talk much. He’s gone as soon as she tries to say the words, and she’s never felt so alone. What’s gotten into her? Why is she so fucking needy all of a sudden?

Elrond’s only away for a couple of minutes. He returns, holding the door open for the nurse, blissfully oblivious to how it makes her heart flutter. The nurse–her name tag reads “Alice” or “Alicia,” Nichelle’s still groggy so she can’t be sure–gives the spiel about the months of physical therapy Nichelle has to look forward to, and, if there is no further injury, a full recovery time of roughly a year and a half. Even with a smooth recovery, her mobility and fine motor skills may be permanently impaired, and it may lead to a slight deterioration of her long-term and short-term memory.

After Alice or Alicia or whatever the fuck her name is leaves, Elrond turns to her and says, “That actually does not sound too ba–”

–then shuts up as soon as he sees the withering look upon her face.

 

For an Elf, days and weeks must slide by like minutes, but for Nichelle, they inch along at a snail’s pace. Day after day, she does nothing but stare at walls and watch television between visits from Elrond, Twinkie, and Thranduil. 

Twinkie comes by to chat and do her hair, what little of it’s left. She doesn’t talk about being kidnapped (and Nichelle only knows because Elrond told her). Every time Nichelle asks, Twinkie brushes it off or changes the subject. But Twinkie flinches and trembles at the sound of a siren, so there has to be more to it than some men in ski masks snatching her out her house.

Thanduil sneaks her delicious, greasy burgers from the cafeteria downstairs. Her bowels make her pay for it later, but god, real food is delicious. Of course, he steals her fries, knowing good and well she can’t slap him on the hand for it. He drinks most of her soda too. Bastard.

Elrond, for his part, brings her books, which he patiently holds open for her and turns the pages when she taps him. He also, in his own words, ensures that she receives the best of care, which translates to him interrogating the nurses and bossing them around. She shouldn’t laugh. The doctors and nurses are only doing their jobs, but it’s funny to see Elrond that way and imagine how much of a tyrant he must’ve been as a healer in Middle-earth. She can picture it now. Elrond striding through sick beds like a general, questioning the terrified apprentices to make sure their habits pass muster.

_“When did you last change those bandages, private?”_

_“Day before yesterday, sir.”_

_“Unacceptable. I want those bandages changed frequently, daily at minimum. You will clean bed pans tonight.”  
_

_“Sir, yes, sir.”_

She can’t help the chuckles rippling out of her, and her diaphragm aches from disuse. It’s good to laugh again, especially after…

_“Sign the contract, Miss Washington.”  
_

( _“Squeal for me, Elf bitch.”_ )

She wakes up in a cold sweat most nights, heart racing and nerves jittering, terrified but not knowing why. She can’t remember what her dreams are about, but she has a hazy memory of a huge shadow tormenting her as others watch. If she were true badass like the Bride from  _Kill Bill_ , she’d be whupping their asses left and right by now. She wishes she could be like Beatrix Kiddo, code name Black Mamba, but she’s not. She’s just Nichelle. Small, weak, afraid. Like everybody else.

 

“The nurses inform me that you are able to sit up without assistance,” says Elrond.

Nichelle sits up to show him. She has to be deliberate about it, and her arms are pretty tired afterward, but she does it. Elrond’s eyes go wide as if he just watched Lazarus rise from the grave. His eyes drink in the sight of her, and he’s beaming like that kid in that Christmas movie who finally got his Red Ryder BB gun.

“They said it would be at least June, if ever, before you could–” he says, reaching for her as though testing to make sure she’s real and not a dream. He’s so, so careful, dreading that she would turn to dust at his touch. He kisses her softly, and she kisses him back, moaning softly as he scoots closer. As he pulls back, his eyes glisten with joyful tears.

Now is the perfect time for her to get sappy and exchange maudlin words of love and devotion, but she needs something different right now, and there’s a hot Half-Elf sitting right there whose very presence stirs primal appetites she has not sated in–December, January, February, March–four months.

“You cannot be serious,” he says. Fuck, she forgot he can read her mind.

“I might be,” says Nichelle, grinning ear to ear as she imagines all the things her sexy Half-Elf stud can do with his famously healing hands. Elrond’s eyebrow arcs so high it nearly goes through the roof. 

“How are you able to think of that in your condition?”

“My condition?” she asks, clumsily stroking his inner thigh because her fine motor skills aren’t quite reliable yet.

“My dear,” he says, then lowers his voice, “we are in a hospital, and you are still in recovery. Even if I agree to this, someone could walk in at any moment.”

“That’s what the curtain’s for. But if you really don’t want to, I can wait until I get outta here.”

He sits on the bed for a moment thinking it over, glancing at her a few times as his fingers absently toy with her hand resting on his thigh. She should be patient and let him think it through, but an idea occurs to her.

“We can make it a reward system.”

He tilts his head just so. It’s so cute her heart flips over several times.

“Well, how about this? Every time I can do something that I couldn’t before, we get to try something new.”

“What would you have us do,  _meleth-nin_?”

It’s a good thing she’s not wearing panties because his voice would’ve made them melt.

“Um…” she says, mind swimming with possibilities, “I guess I just wanna…”

She describes it for him.

“I see,” he says. Then he stands up and pulls the curtain around the bed.

 

Nichelle’s coordination improves drastically over the next few weeks. Sex, as it turns out, is a wonderful motivator. The physical therapist, a young white woman named Rhonda, says that she’s never met a patient so eager for PT. If she only knew.

The only thing she looks forward to more than physical therapy is Elrond stopping by. He gets into the spirit of their little game remarkably quickly, and for someone who claims he lacks imagination, he can be surprisingly inventive in his “rewards” for her progress.

“I finished the coloring book Twinkie gave me,” she tells him one day, showing how good a job she did coloring inside the lines. For her prize, he spends his entire visit paying loving attention to her tits.

A couple of weeks later, she says, “I used the wheelchair and went to the bathroom all by myself today.”

“Have you, now?” he asks, lifting the hospital gown and rubbing between her legs.

Some weeks after that, she says, “I stood up on crutches.”

“Good girl,” he says. Then he kneels on the floor and tastes between her legs.

As April rounds the corner into May, she says, “If I keep getting better at this rate, I can go home this month.”

“Is that so? I believe that requires something rather special, do you not agree?”

He has her lie across his lap and lie perfectly still while his fingers plunge into her hot, wet core and his tongue swirls around her puckered sphincter.

Between Elrond indulging her with “treats,” Thranduil makes many pointed comments about her good mood and seems to know when Elrond has come by. Twinkie outright says that the room smells like sex.

“Y’all some nasty muthafuckas for doin’ that shit.”

 

The hospital releases Nichelle on the Thursday before Memorial Day. There are follow-up doctor’s appointments and pain meds, plus weeks or months of physical therapy to follow, but she’s happy to finally get out of that room and into the warmth and sunshine. Elrond escorts her to a bench near the entrance, and they sit in companionable silence as they wait for Uber to get there. The air is thick with the smells of spring, and the fine coat of pollen on parked cars makes a promise of many days spent sneezing and blowing her nose. Fifteen minutes later, a gray sedan pulls into the passenger pickup area. 

During the ride back to her apartment, she puts the window down, letting the breeze caress her face as the car zips through the city. The sun kisses her face with rays of light and warmth. She soaks it up, lets it seep into her flesh and bones, awakening every cell in her body with its energy. Now she understands why people used to worship the sun.

Elrond is staring at her, mirror-sheen eyes unblinking and so clear that she can see herself in them.

“What?”

“You seem different,” he says.

“Different how?”

“You have a glow about you,” he says, “as if your spirit shines from within.”

“Yeah? What’s it look like?”

Elrond strokes her cheek and says, “Like you are made of golden light. Though, it may be my love for you that makes it seem so.”

Is she different? Maybe she is. Before Elrond committed a breaking and entering to be in her life, she would be disturbed by how easily he penetrates the veils she puts up between herself and the world. If this were five years ago, the prospect of being so known, so  _seen_ , by someone would have terrified her, and she would have run from it even if staying would have made her happy.

No thanks to She Who Shall Not Be Named (also known as You Know Who as well as Her), fear of being hurt is a big part of that, but it has always been in her nature to withhold the deepest parts of herself. Everything that happens to her changes only the surface while the core of her, the essence, remains untouched. In the ways that matter most, she has been, at heart, a virgin.

Then Elrond crashed into her life from another world, shaking up everything she thought she knew about the world and herself. Only now does she begin to register the seismic shifts in her psyche. It lays bare fear and pain, but it deepens her capacity for joy and passion and–

“What is it?” he asks. His eyes are wise and kind, with the subtlest hint of raw animal passion. How hadn’t she noticed it before?

“I love you,” she whispers, a tinge of  _please don’t hurt me_  creeping into her voice even though she knows he’d rather kill himself than cause her pain. He opens his mouth to speak, once, twice, three times, but the words never come. He shakes his head and remains silent.

The car stops in front of her building. In the light of day, it’s looks nothing like the gothic palace she often imagined it to be. But it’s hers, and she’s here. Elrond is already outside opening the door for her. He offers his hand to her. She hesitates, considering the layers of meaning underneath this silent, simple gesture. Can she? Will she? With him?

She puts her hand in his. It’s strong, warm, and gentle, like the rest of him. When Elrond’s fingers close around her hand, it feels so…right.

“Welcome home, my lady.”


	9. Chapter 9

 

> _And I say to you_  
>  _When your fear is strong_  
>  _When you fear your life_  
>  _Then your fear is wrong_
> 
> _Set free your past_   
>  _So shredding the skin_   
>  _Then you won’t fear_   
>  _The fear of sin_
> 
> _Fear_  –Bauhaus, “In Fear of Fear”

Every city has its monsters. They lurk within the oral histories, hiding from the hustle and bustle as they wait for just the right place and just the right moment to make another story of another victim.

The monster that lives in the heart of Detroit stirs from its decades-long slumber. It was to remain asleep for a few years yet, but it was roused by a presence, familiar yet strange, making a mess in the monster’s playground of dead things that walk. Is this one of its dreams conjured up to amuse it? It may very well be. In that hazy state between sleep and wakefulness, the monster’s dreams seep into reality. They creep through tunneled places of the city: in air ducts and elevator shafts, in sewers, and in drains, listening…waiting…

 

Twinkie avoids elevators now. Ever since 

( _“Andrea…”_ )

what happened in what she now thinks of as That Place, she takes the stairs and lets everyone think she does it for her health. She can’t complain too much, though. Her legs look fantastic.

It took her months to finally sleep through the night and not wake up two or three times in a cold sweat, heart beating wildly as if she’s run a mile in four minutes flat. But there are days when she can’t face being alone in her place, so Nicki lets her come over, and they watch something silly on Netflix. While they munch on popcorn, Nicki sometimes glances at her and gives her that look that asks the questions without opening her mouth. Twinkie never answers, though. Someday, maybe, but not now.

The fear never completely leaves her. She just gets better at pretending it’s not there.

Then, on one sunny afternoon, she’s digging empty bags of MacDonald’s and Wendy’s and Popeye’s from beneath the seats when she feels someone approach. She backs out of the car and flinches upon seeing a tall, humanoid shape standing right behind her, and she balls her fist, ready to clock this fool, but it’s just Elrond.

“Boy, you almost got knocked the fuck out,” she says. Elrond gives her an amused grin, not even the least bit sorry for sneaking up on her like that. He looks good with the short hair. He looked good with long hair too, but with short hair she can see more of how beautiful he is.

“Do you require assistance, Lady Twinkie?” he asks. She can’t get over how he talks like he’s a character in a Shakespeare play, all  _dost thou_  and  _prithee_ and all that shit. Half the time she expects him to pull off the ears and say that his real name is Chad, and he’s a model trying to break into acting.

They clean out the car together. It looks and smells like new in half the time. She could’ve done it all on her own, and she takes pride in being able to do things for herself, but it does feel good to have someone there to help.

“Lady Twinkie,” says Elrond, silver eyes soft with concern. Twinkie has a feeling about what’s coming next.

“It has not escaped my notice that the burden of what you experienced in November has yet to leave you.”

“I’m a’ight.”

“Be that as it may, the shadow of fear still lies upon you.”

Can’t deny that one. How the fuck does he know this stuff?

“Nichelle has informed me that there are persons called therapists who specialize in helping others heal from traumas of the mind and spirit. I believe that speaking with such an individual may be of great benefit to you.”

This muthafucka has to be joking. A therapist? Really? Like she can afford fifty dollars a week to talk to white folks about her problems. Shit, the moment she says, “Elrond Halfelven sent me,” they’ll throw her in the nuthouse so fast it’ll make her head spin. She’s this close to biting his head off and telling him where he can shove his advice, but she stops herself and counts to ten. Elrond just wants her to be well, and after everything he’s done for her, he deserves better than to get yelled at for something stupid. It’s nice of him to care, though.

Elrond says, “I know that you take pride in the strength of your spirit, so it is therefore not your way to share your burdens with others. Even so, it is not good to bear all things alone.”

Twinkie wants to lash out and tell him to shut the fuck up because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but one look in his eyes, and she can tell he understands. That wisdom shining from his eyes doesn’t come from reading books. It comes from the school of hard knocks. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that living for thousands of years means that Elrond’s been through some shit.

“Where can I go? Who’d believe me?”

“I do not deny that many would doubt you if you spoke to them of such matters. Yet there are those who will accept what you say as truth.”

“But Nicki–”

“Has me.You must, for your own sake, seek help,” he says.

That night, while she’s online, she gets the strange urge to Google therapists plus haunting, and Google offers “paranormal therapists” as a search term. Oddly enough, she finds a link to the Detroit Paranormal Support Group.

She hovers the cursor over the Contact button. Can she do this? Will it help? What if it’s nothing but a bunch of New Age white folks sitting in a fake drum circle with their Wal-mart dreamcatchers talking about chakras and using Ouija boards?

_For your own sake, seek help._

Twinkie clicks the Contact button and types her message.

 

Every city has its monsters. They hide behind white picket fences and badges and three-piece suits. Skulking beneath their, “How do you do?” and “May I help you?” there is the diabolical urge to butcher and defile. If you look closely, you may catch a faint glint in their eye and get a flash of red-splattered carnage, of blood and brains oozing from empty eye socket. Or there may be a glimpse of lifeless corpses posed like dolls, their glassy eyes open but seeing nothing.

At the right angle–or, shall we say, the wrong one–you may see with your naked eye the evil spirit that dwells within. Does it surprise you to know it is not some creature from beyond time and space so fearsome in visage that to look upon it is to court madness? Does it shock you that this evil spirit has a human face, just like you?

 

Fluorescent lights in the ceiling bathe the empty men’s room of Precinct 13 in sterile white light. Leaky chrome faucets drip water into rust-rimmed sinks. A mouse scampers on the floor along the wall toward a discreet hole where it secrets away the treasures collected from what people have forgotten and ignored.

The door swings open. Officer Daniel Burke enters and parks himself in front of one of three rusty porcelain urinals. As a stream of yellow flows out of him, his mind flicks through the errands he must run after work for the rest of the week.

_Fix the AC in the car. Buy groceries; don’t forget the milk, eggs, bread. See Carl. Get a beer with the guys Saturday; bring something to grill. DVR Game of Thrones._

The door opens. So much for a minute of privacy. A cursory glance identifies the newcomer as Ramirez.

“Hey, Sam,” says Burke.

Ramirez responds by locking the door. The hell–

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” he asks.

“Sure, Sam. What’s going on?”

“I know about you and Sands.”

“Know what about me and Sands?” asks Burke. He zips his pants and flushes.

“Need me to make a list, you piece of shit?”

Who the fuck does this little spic he think he is? He has no right to judge. No right! Him and Sands aren’t hurting anybody who didn’t already have it coming. They’re all just gangbangers and junkies, wastes of life waiting to die. As long as they stay where they belong, who gives a shit what happens to them?

Burke moves to the sink and pushes the hot water nob on the faucet, wetting his hands in the lukewarm stream. He glimpses the Employees Must Wash Hands sign and considers not using soap. He pumps the foam from the dispenser instead.

“It’s not like everybody else isn’t doing it, so why’re you in here busting my balls?”

“All that shit you were doing, and you don’t feel nothing?”

“Yeah,” says Burke, grabbing a length of paper towel, “I’m pissed off because you come in here on your high horse acting like I’m going outta my way to hurt innocent people. None of those fuckers do anything but take up space.”

“Andrea Jackson. Nichelle Washington. They’re just taking up space too, huh?”

“I didn’t touch any of ‘em.”

“That’s what Sands was for, right?”

“Fuck you! Sands was waiting for any excuse to shoot her Black ass. If it weren’t for me, she’d be a splatter on the pavement. You don’t even have the first shred of proof for any of this, so you can kiss my ass.”

“Don’t need proof,” says Sam, “I got a confession.”

Sam reaches into the front pocket of his jacket and takes out a cell phone. He presses a few buttons, and Burke hears his own voice

_It’s not like everybody else isn’t doing it._

_You come in here on your high horse acting like I’m going outta my way to hurt innocent people. None of those fuckers do anything but take up space.  
_

_Sands was waiting for any excuse to shoot her Black ass. If it weren’t for me, she’d be a splatter on the pavement._

Ramirez says, “Blake found this app. I push this button right here, like this, and it goes straight to I.A. Pretty cool, huh? Kids these days.”

And just like that, Burke’s whole life crumbles to dust.

 

News travels quickly when there’s a scandal. On Detroit’s local television channels, news anchors tell the story of a city-wide corruption scandal the likes of which has not been seen since Serpico. In the pages of Motown’s newspapers, reporters churn out pieces a mile a minute to keep up with the breaking news.

Detroit City Voice’s front page reports:

 

> **Detroit PD Investigated For Corruption**
> 
> _DETROIT–The Detroit Police Department is the subject of a city-wide investigation into police corruption after several police officers were dismissed from service after it was discovered that they were participating in a variety of criminal activities, from accepting bribes to kidnapping and murder._
> 
> _Detroit PD’s Internal Affairs division has released no further details about the investigation at this time. However, IA advises all residents to report incidents of officer misconduct to the Internal Affairs office._

It’s on the second page of the Detroit Free Press:

 

> **Former Police Officer Found Dead**
> 
> _DETROIT–Former Detroit police officer Daniel Burke was found dead in his holding cell after being arrested as a result of his involvement in the corruption scandal currently being investigated by the Internal Affairs department of the Detroit Police Department._
> 
> _The cause of death has yet to be determined, and authorities are not offering further comment at this time._

Motown News puts it on the page covering legal and law enforcement news:

 

> **Former Police Officer Sentenced to 35 Years**
> 
> _DETROIT–Julia Sands, former officer of the Detroit Police department, has been sentenced to 35 years imprisonment for multiple charges of bribery, distributing controlled substances, assault and battery, and fraud. Sands was recently dismissed from the Detroit Police Department after it was revealed that she was part a department-wide epidemic of corruption. Sands, 34, will serve her sentence in Huron Valley Correctional Facility and will be eligible for parole in 11 years._

It even trends on Facebook, getting the attention of national news outlets and prompting pieces in  _Time_ ,  _Newsweek_ ,  _The Washington Post_ , and  _The New York Times_.

The President even makes a speech about it, emphasizing the need for law enforcement to uphold the highest standards of legal and ethical behavior to ensure the public trust. There’s the usual empty promise to look into things that no one believes.

But after a couple of weeks, the furor has calmed somewhat. Then it picks up again after Kanye West and Kim Kardashian have another baby.

 

June gently rolls into July. The lazy summer sun casts its light on I-78, illuminating billboards advertising a new diet, a new car, and new drugs for erectile dysfunction. On the streets of Motor City, flowers defiantly grow between cracks in the concrete. They talk animatedly about the firecrackers they set off on the Fourth of July. 

Look at them, so gleefully oblivious of what lies ahead. For them, all that exists is bright green summer filled with lazy days and ice cream cones and visits to the pool. To them, the future is a wide-open road that goes on and on, forever and ever until the end of time. They do not see or care about the dead end waiting for them ahead.

Ramirez smiles, bittersweet, as he thinks of the lives they have ahead of them and the life his  _angelita_ will never lead. And yet, there is something thin about their shrill laughter, about the sight of them running, books and book bags gleefully forgotten, toward lines of yellow buses and parked cars. It reminds Ramirez of a mirage, all image and no substance, covering the parched, unadorned truth of those things that lurk beneath the illusion of the world.

(Yet, what Ramirez does not know is that children  _do_  know. Oh, yes, they do. They know them as ghosts and zombies, Wolfman and Dracula, the creature in the closet and the monster under the bed. The kids who  _really_  know know that it’s a clown wearing a silver suit with orange buttons, bright eyes shiny as nickels, clutching a handful of balloons that float, balloons that have their names on them.)

It probably has something to do with how he still hasn’t put what happened at the Walton behind him, and maybe he never will. Those days when he could look into the shadows and find nothing could be over. Turning off the lights and seeing the shapes of…things waiting in the dark may just be how it is for him from now on. It may be his new normal to hear footsteps behind him when he’s alone, getting closer….closer….closer….then feel something, unseen yet substantial, brush up against him. It all might be a part of him now, just like the white hair at his temples. Blake says it makes him look distinguished, but he doesn’t feel distinguished. He just feels old.

“Hey, Sarge,” says Blake, coming back from wherever he went for his lunch break. He holds an iced coffee in his hand. Blake looks the same as always, as if that awful place didn’t almost kill him. It’s so unfair.

“How do you do it?” he asks.

“Oh, y’know, eat right, work out,” says Blake. Ramirez would think he was being sarcastic if he didn’t know him better.

“Not that. I mean, you look the same, and I’m–”

He runs a finger through the hair at his temple. Blake slumps against the wall.

“Wish I knew, it’s not something I know I’m doing, if anything” says Blake.

He speaks again, voice soft and low, “But sometimes I wake up, and it’s hard to breathe, and there’s something cold wrapped around my neck.”

Suddenly, Blake’s face looks pale and drawn, his eyes slightly dark as if he hasn’t had a full night’s sleep in forever, and just like that, Ramirez sees Blake’s goody two-shoes, Pollyanna optimism for the mask it is. 

“It’s not gonna be the same from now on, is it?” asks Blake.

 

“Abbie! Abbie!”

Abbie’s eyes fly open. Her hears throb with her frantic heartbeat. Crane’s leaning over her, shaking her. What’s Crane doing in her room? She’s got half a mind to yell at him to get out, but Crane look so worried she forgets to be mad.

“What happened?”

“You were shouting.”

Abbie stretches, smiling to herself as Crane turns away from an eye full of her assets. She brings the cover to her chest.

“You can look now, Crane.”

Crane faces her again.

“Do you wish to discuss it?”

Abbie falls back onto the bed.

“I don’t remember,” she says. It’s not a lie, not exactly. She can’t remember most of it. She does, however, remember being dead. It had something to do with some kind of artifact. Was it a jar or a box?

Crane arcs a brow. Any other time, he’d press her for answers, but the talk about needing space to deal with her own issues seems to have sunk in. Though he, for once, keeps his mouth shut, she notes the chastising look on his face. It’s understandable, given his history with women who kept secrets from him.

“If it happens again, you must tell me,” says Crane.

She wants to tell him that she is a fully functional adult who can take care of herself and doesn’t need a man to look after her, but Crane’s warm, soft hand on her brow reminds her that it feels good to be cared for by someone.

Crane tucks her back in and cuts off the light. As soon as the door shuts behind him, she’s fast asleep. This time, she dreams of stars.

 

Every city has its monsters. Each senses it differently.

All the way in San Diego, Thranduil sips wine and watches  _The Walking Dead._ He laughs as Michonne’s katana lobs off the head of walker after walker, half the time without even bothering to look. It would have been magnificent to see her wield Orcrist or another Elvish blade against a horde of Orcs, Wargs, and Trolls. The minstrels of Middle-earth would have composed many a ballad in her honor, describing in colorful detail the many ways she dismembers her enemies. Just after the show cuts to commercial, the old dread flickers, and he remembers that moment when a great malice swept through all of Middle-earth. Suddenly, he’s no longer sitting in his living room. He’s…

_on the field of battle, thousands of his people lying dead around him and half-eaten by Orcs and their mounts. His father, shining like a silver beacon amidst the dark swarm, cuts, thrusts, and tramples all in his path, until a Troll sweeps its club in a long arc and smashes into his gray steed. The horse dies instantly and falls on top of him. Thranduil urges his mount toward him, spilling the blood of many Orcs as he closes the distance, but as he dispatches one, ten more rush into its place. He is too late. The Orcs surround his father and attack, tearing his flesh with their teeth and claws. The last Thranduil sees of him are his innards being ripped from his corpse._

Meanwhile, in Detroit, Elrond dreams of Nichelle and Celebrían, tongues, lips, limbs entwined, taking turns using him for their own pleasure. Music from this world plays between soft moans, cries of ecstasy and whispers saying  _so beautiful_. Nichelle gasps, an exqusite sound, while Celebrían laps between her spread legs. Elrond gently plants open-mouthed kisses all over both of them.

Then he is lying on his back. Celebrían cradles his head in her lap and kisses him up and down his neck. Nichelle gently spreads his legs and lies between them. She licks the skin just above the artery pumping blood to his groin. They bite, hard, piercing his flesh with their teeth. He moans as pure sensation rushes through him. His head swims with delightful bewilderment. No one has ever known joy such as this. He lets it take him where it will.

They stop.

Nichelle rises to meet his face, but she has changed. Though she still wears the face of his beloved, her eyes have gone from brown to red. Her lips are painted red with his blood. Her mouth is twisted into a cruel, bloody smile and sports huge, elongated canines that come to sharp points. With clawed hand, she strokes his cheek.

“How strong you are,” she says. Blood drizzles from her chin onto his skin.

“Please,” he whimpers.

“Do you want more, or have you tasted enough?”

“More,” he says.

“All hail Discorda!” chant Nichelle and Celebrían amid sweet laughter and bloody smiles.

Elrond awakens to a sense of deep foreboding plucking at his consciousness like the string of a harp. Nichelle sleeps peacefully beside him. Moonlight pours through the large, round window and covers her in a soft, white glow. 

His wits gradually return to him. Some foul thing has awakened in the city. Ancient. Powerful. It reminds him of when the Necromancer rose in Dol Goldur and when Sauron arrived in Lindon disguised as Annatar. But Sauron is all but unmade, and Morgoth is imprisoned until the End of Days.

What could this new evil be? Is destroying it the purpose for which he has been sent to this world?

 

Every city has its monsters. 

You’ve sense them too, don’t you? Creeping through the tunneled places of the city: in air ducts, in sewers, in drains. When it’s quiet, and you’re alone, sometimes you hear a gurgle rising up from the bathtub or the sink. Or the sound of something squeezing its mass through the air vent.

It’s not your imagination.


End file.
